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Class Jj 

Book . 

Copyright N°. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 




THE WARTBURG 
FROM THE THURINGIAN FOREST. 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



BY 
FREDERICK A. BISBEE 



ILLUSTRATED 




BOSTON 

THE MURRAY PRESS 

1911 






Copyright, 1911, 

BY 

MELVIN S. NASH 



J 

S 

THE MURRAY PRESS 

359 Boylston St. 
Boston 



©CLA28t>457 



Dedication 
S0 iMfl Seat $x\mb 



PREFACE 

The meeting of the World Congress of Free 
Christianity and Religious Progress in Berlin 
during the summer of 1910 drew together 
more than two thousand delegates from nearly 
every part of the world. More than sixty 
different religious sects and thirty different 
nationalities were represented. Add to these 
great numbers nearly as many more attendants 
from Berlin and vicinity, and the magnitude 
and dignity of the occasion will be appreci- 
ated. 

This great multitude assembled in the in- 
terests of human freedom and religious prog- 
ress; some of the most eminent teachers and 
religious leaders of the world participated, and 
a new era of the fellowship of the spirit in 
universal brotherhood was inaugurated. The 
story of the Congress has already been re- 
hearsed by the press, and the proceedings in 
detail are published in several large volumes, 
in both German and English. 

To attend this Congress, a party of nearly 
two hundred Americans sailed from Boston 

vii 



Vlll PREFACE 

on the Devonian, and other steamers early in 
July, and in addition to the visit to Berlin, 
made an extended tour of Europe, covering 
England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Hun- 
gary, France and Italy, enjoying unique social 
and literary privileges. 

This was a rather exceptional group of 
tourists; there were twelve different religious 
denominations represented in the Devonian 
party; there were ministers, college professors, 
teachers, authors, artists, students, lawyers, 
physicians, merchants and farmers. This book 
is the story of some of their experiences along 
the way. 

To such a journey there is, of course, a seri- 
ous purpose, which deserves and has received 
appropriate consideration. But there is also 
another side, the " human side," which is not 
less important than the "proceedings of the 
meeting." In these sketches will be found the 
"human side," touched with light and shade, 
just as it always is, at home or abroad, — but 
a little more of light than of shade. 

The only reason for giving to these informal 
records this permanent form is the assurance 
of some who have read them, that while the 
journey was over well-trodden paths, familiar 
to all through experience or reading, the pur- 



PKEFACE IX 

pose of the writer to see things from a new- 
point of view, and to tell in a new way what he 
saw, has been measurably accomplished, and 
it is thought the book will have a reminiscent 
value to all who have been over the route, 
and an inspirational value to some who have 
not. 

The author disclaims any purpose to instruct 
in geography, history, art or literature, but 
while never allowing his imagination to be 
hampered by facts, he has kept as near the 
truth as was convenient. He has tried to tell 
as simply and pleasantly as possible the story 
of a delightful flight, with delightful compan- 
ions, through a delightful summer. 

F. A. B. 

Boston, Mass., 1911. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Flight of the Angels 1 

Which carries them across the Ocean. 

II. Over on the Other Side 16 

The Angels are cordially welcomed, and con- 
sider the Religious Situation. 

III. The Angels Sight-seeing 29 

In Chester, Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon. 

IV. The Angels continue to see Things 44 

At Kenilworth and Oxford. 

V. The Angels in London 52 

Eat, drink and are merry. 

VI. Ik moet een Slaapkamer hebben .... 67 

Revealing an Incident of the Angels' Inva- 
sion of Holland. 

VII. In the Land of the Wooden Shoe . . 78 

Also of the Windmill, the Canal, and 
Several Other Things. 

VIII. The Temptation of the Angels 88 

Which befell them in Cologne and on the 
Rhine. 

IX. The Angels on a Spree 102 

Being a Brief of their Stay in Berlin. 

X. The Angels and the Kaiser 114 

From the Angels' Point of View. 

XL In the Steps of Luther 125 

Following the Reformer through Witten- 
berg and Weimar to Eisenach. 

XII. On the Heights with Luther 136 

Finding Refuge with him in the Old Castle 
of the Wartburg. 

xi 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEK PAGE 

XIII. At Oberammergau 150 

The Angels observe the Natives and in- 
dulge in a Few Thoughts. 

XIV. The Passion Play 161 

A Serious Account and Interpretation. 

XV. Down from the Heights 175 

Lingering for a Few Last Observations, the 
Angels descend to the Earth at Munich. 

XVI. The Angels in Switzerland 188 

Have their Fill of Scenery, — to say nothing 
of Other Things. 

XVII. The Land of William Tell 198 

Proves to be the World in Miniature. 

XVIII. On Top of the Earth 210 

When the Angels had the World at their 
Feet. 

XIX. The Greatest Bore on Earth 221 

Through which a Group of the Angels pass 
to do Italy. 

XX. Milanese 232 

One Lone Angel wishes he had studied Es- 
peranto, but all find Much to Interest in 
Milan. 

XXI. On the Rialto 246 

The Strange Adventures which befell an 
Angel under the Guidance of Launcelot 
Gobbo. 

XXII. Round about Venice 280 

Democratic Angels in the Palaces of Princes. 

XXIII. The Unfolding of Italy 275 

In which Four Angels adventure into 
Florence and Southern Italy. 

XXIV. All Roads lead to Rome 290 

And even the Angels get there at last. 

XXV. Being in Rome 304 

The Angels do as the Romans did not. 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVI. Round about Rome 318 

Following in the Footsteps of the Famous. 

XXVII. Naples the Beautiful 334 

Where Weeds and Flowers grow from the 
same Dirt. 

XXVIII. Up Vesuvius 344 

The Angels again seek the Heights to look 
into the Depths. 

XXIX. The Return Flight 355 

Across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 




CHAPTER I 

THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 

WHICH CARRIES THEM ACROSS THE OCEAN 

10 one would have taken them for 
Angels as they came on board of 
the Devonian at the East Boston 
dock, on the thirteenth of July, 
just before the hour of sailing for the World's 
Congress of Religious Liberals to be held in 
Berlin, and incidentally to "do" more or less 
of Europe. Angels according to all authori- 
ties, ancient and modern, do not travel with 
suit cases, steamer rugs, flowers, chocolates, 
fruits and other impedimenta, and still farther, 
Angels are popularly supposed to voyage 
aerially rather than aqueously; but in spite 
of appearances, I am disposed to contend that 
the one hundred and forty passengers on the 
Devonian were Angels, in that they were 
messengers of light and good will among men; 

l 



2 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

and if it were true that the wings and crowns 
and palm branches were so elemental as to be 
invisible at the start, and if as they developed 
some of them got a bit bedraggled with the 
dust and soil of earth and things earthy, yet 
I doubt if any ship ever carried a passenger 
list any more worthy, on the whole, to be 
recorded in the Book of Life. 




GOOD-BY TO THE ANGELS. 



And that was a reason for no little appre- 
hension on my part as to what we were to do for 
ten days shut up with such a deadly monotony 
of goodness! Sailors are a superstitious lot; they 
fear nothing so much as a cargo of ministers, 
and here they could not throw a marlinspike 
without hitting at least one, and those who 
were not ordained might be classed as " near- 
ministers, " so it is not surprising that there 
was more or less of gloom on the faces of the 



THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 6 

crew, and shadowy portent in the hearts of 
some of the less regenerate among the passen- 
gers. 

But the ship got away in good shape, and 
before the voyage was two days old it was 
manifest that there was sufficient savor of 
common everyday human nature to keep the 
Devonian on a horizontal rather than a perpen- 
dicular course. In fact we presently discov- 
ered that there is a great deal of human nature 
even among the best class of angels! 

As one of the angelic host I found the very 
human quality of laziness developing to an 
abnormal degree. I had started out with a 
very beautiful book, — a loose-leaf book, so I 
could add to its size if occasion required, — to 
hold the daily journal I was to keep for the 
benefit of my friends and possible readers, and 
with a conscientious determination to keep up 
with the procession of events; and now, on a 
steamer going home, two months later, as I 
look upon that book as it lies before me, I see 
its pure white pages unsullied by a word from 
my pen. It is a good book, bound in real 
russia leather, and I fancy it will last me all 
my life! But it has revealed something to me, 
which I have long suspected, that recordable 
events in this modern life which the newspaper 



4 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

dominates, are limited to those which contain 
at least a suggestion of evil, so what was one 
to do for "copy" when traveling with Angels? 
It was a poor outlook for a lazy man. Then 
there was another reason why my beautiful 
book is still untarnished by my observations; 




ON THE DECK OF THE DEVONIAN. 

I stilled my conscience on the way over by 
the thought that I needed a real rest for a few 
days, and the promise that when we got on 
the other side I would catch up with my work, 
only to discover that while on the ship I had 
time but no disposition; over there, I had 
the disposition but no time! The powers that 
arranged our program from the moment we 
landed in Liverpool, seemed to think that they 
were entering the whole group in a gigantic 
Marathon race through the British Islands and 
Europe, and I learned that though under 



THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 5 

favorable circumstances, he who runs may 
read, — he cannot write. 

All of which is a roundabout way of saying 
that instead of giving a categorical account of 
this marvelously unique summer in Europe 
with a flock of Angels, as per daily record in 
my unwritten journal, I propose to chatter 
about the trip as it comes to mind, just as we 
all shall talk it over with the folks at home, 
without any regard for continuity, but trying 
as best I can, under natural limitations, to 
keep in sight of the truth! 

Of course the goal of it all was the Congress 
of Religions at Berlin, and I have a special 
department of my mind and heart stored with 
memories of that, which I shall try to give 
" on the side/' so that those who want simply 
to get a glimpse of that event, need not follow 
us in all our flights, and need not wait for it 
until we get there in the course of our some- 
what erratic course. 

How naturally one drops into the conven- 
tional and almost necessary phrase in writing 
of a journey abroad! Every possible variation 
of language has been employed in describing 
the departure of the ship, and life on board, 
and one has but to say "ditto" and it is all 
said; and this year it is peculiarly out of place 



6 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

to try to tell anybody about going to Europe, 
for, from all appearances abroad, everybody 
in America was in Europe, either actually or 
vicariously! But, after all, our own trip was 
unique. Since the sailing of the Mayflower 
for America we believe the Devonian is the 
first ship to carry a passenger list made up 
exclusively of those seeking Religious Liberty, 
though not like our distinguished predecessors, 
fleeing from religious restraint and persecution. 
Rather were we carrying the good news of our 
freedom to those who on a like mission, were 



UNDER THE AWNING ON THE 'DEVONIAN. 

hastening from other lands to bring us greet- 
ing and encouragement. 

So the American group which sailed on the 
Devonian was peculiar. It was made up of 
representatives of twelve different sects, but 
with one common purpose, to find the points 
of agreement and begin the mobilizing of the 



THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 7 

forces of righteousness for a great world-move- 
ment. 

It was a noble conception, and the feeling 
as I draw near the close of the tour is that it 
was nobly carried out. The archangel of our 
group, if I may so distinguish the man who 
more than all others contributed to its triumph, 
deserves and receives all credit for the masterly 
consummation of a world-purpose for Liberal 
Religion. I do not propose in this chronicle 
to introduce names any more than is necessary, 
for the thing is so much bigger than the people 
in it, but I cannot forbear at this time, making 
fitting recognition of the work of Rev. Dr. 
Wendte, who, though representing but one of 
the denominations included, had a vision of a 
world-movement in which the representatives 
of every liberal and liberalizing force in the 
religious world should come together, not to 
lose themselves in each other, but to strengthen 
themselves for a contribution to a common pur- 
pose, larger than any one. And his vision was 
so nearly realized that others have seen it in 
its glory, and its future is bright with promise. 
Facing almost insurmountable difficulties and 
misunderstandings, he has succeeded in bring- 
ing into line forces which will yet have much 
to do with shaping the world's religious good, 
which is inclusive of all good. 



s 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 




SHUFFLE BOARD. 



But I am anticipating the Congress itself 
while we are yet on the ship. And yet how 
could I do anything else, for the voyage from 
Boston to Liverpool was a prototype of the 
Congress itself. There we were representing so 
many different sects, yet living in perfect har- 
mony, worshiping 
together, playing to- 
gether, working to- 
gether in the unity 
of the spirit and the 
bonds of peace. 

The memory of 
those days on the 
steamer will be cher- 
ished by every one who knew their charm. 
There were no outsiders, we were as one family 
of congenial spirits. Formal introductions were 
hardly necessary, for we were all on a com- 
mon mission, and so we came together in a 
wholly informal way. Several religious services 
were held, conducted by Unitarian, Baptist, 
Universalist, Christian and Friends, and they 
were services which would have surprised many 
of those who disconnect Liberalism from fervor. 
Those who preached to us, caught the full spirit 
of Christian fellowship and led us into the true 
spirit of worship. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 9 

Then there were the evenings of entertain- 
ment when with song and story the hours were 
made glad. And not to be forgotten the 
Athletic Field Day, — though I never did quite 
understand why it was not the Athletic Deck 
Day! — when all the young people — and none 
were old that day — contended in all sorts of 
races and contests, with all the enthusiasm, 
if not the skill of professionals. It was just 
good fun, and the parson will preach the 
better, the professor will teach the better, and 
the student will learn the more, because of the 
letting go. 

But I must not linger over the pleasant de- 
tails, which will linger long in all our hearts, 
lest we never arrive in the Promised Land. 
There was one thing we missed to my ever- 
lasting regret. I had always longed to see a 
seasick angel. I was in the state of mind of the 
boy who stood anxiously watching the minis- 
ter tacking down a carpet, who just wanted to 
hear what a minister would say when he hit 
his finger a good crack! It is easy enough being 
angelic when conditions are favorable, but how 
would a real angel endure seasickness? Would 
he, could he — or she — live up to the char- 
acter, or would human nature triumph? But 
alas, I am not to know, at least not yet, 



10 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

perhaps never, for over there where the angelic 
population is more numerous, there is said to 
be "no more sea." 

In spite of the forebodings of the sailors, 
never was there a fairer or quicker voyage for 
the Devonian; save for a few days of mild fog, 
and a bit of a roll off the Irish coast, we had 
a smooth sea, and fair winds all the way, and 
sailed into Liverpool a day ahead of our 
scheduled time, to find a cordial Reception 
Committee of Liberals awaiting us, with a 
welcome whose generous cordiality touched our 
hearts and filled the treasury of our memory. 

But I cannot leave our memorable voyage 
without an observation or two, or more it may 
be. It matters not how carefully chosen a 
passenger list may be, the ship is bound to be 
the world in miniature, on which are enacted 
the same comedies and tragedies which are 
played on the larger stage. All the virtues and 
all the vices, all the strength and all the weak- 
ness of humanity are found even in a company 
of angels! Light and darkness chase each 
other across a deck as sunlight and cloud- 
shadow flit across a valley. Not that we had 
any tragedies, and none too much of comedy, 
but the same elements which go to make up 
an everyday life at home were there, — gener- 



THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 11 

osity and selfishness, modesty and arrogance, 
though tfulness and thoughtlessness, selfish pride 
and self-respect, Christian courtesy and base 
forge tfulness. Humanized angels and angelic 
humans, the exclusives and the inclusives, — 
yes, we were all there, as we are everywhere, 
no matter where we are. The first-class look 
down on the second, the second look down on 
the steerage, the steerage is sorry for those who 
stay at home, and, to complete the circle, the 
stay-at-homes pity the first-class who must 
hunt the world over to find the pleasure they 
should know at home! None so high but 
there are others higher, none so low but there 
are others lower. "0 why should the spirit 
of mortal be proud?" Yet some of us were 
wise and others foolish, and the wise confounded 
us with their foolishness, and the foolish 
amazed us with their wisdom. The savant 
trips us with his knowledge, while a little child 
shall lead us. Yet we pity and patronize one 
another! Down in the hold of the ship were 
a dozen or more young men; they were not 
allowed to come on deck, we could only see 
them and talk with them through the hatch. 
They were a lot of college boys — two Tufts 
men among them; they were taking care of 
the cattle to pay their way over; they were the 



12 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

most popular men on the boat. Every pas- 
senger respected them for doing their dirty 
work in a manly way and for a purpose. They 
knew a great deal; they could read Latin and 
toy with geometrical problems. But they 
could not come on deck, while the boss herds- 
man, who would never know as much in his 
whole life as they knew in a minute, paced the 
deck and kept them below — but then he knew 
cattle; he probably pitied the "ignorance" of 
those "college cubs!" 

And I could not avoid the thought that as 
in any heaven to which we may attain, we are 
like the old Scotchman, — we were all there by 
grace and not by merit. It is true that some 
had worked hard and earned the actual money 
to be expended on the trip, and yet not one of 
us but was there because of the sacrifice of 
money or time, or convenience or pleasure, or 
love of some others, who were back there in our 
homes or churches making it possible for us to 
enjoy the unique opportunity of a tour of 
Europe, and the meeting with perhaps the most 
distinguished group of world-leaders of the age. 
This was true probably of every one of us; 
through the sacrifice of others we were being 
filled with joy. But particularly was this so 
of the ministers, and in a right manly way did 



THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 13 

they acknowledge their obligation. Hardly a 
minister was with us whose voyage had not 
been made possible by the generosity and 
thoughtfulness of one or more friends, as well 
as by the sacrifices of those nearer, who changed 
all their summer plans, or gave up cherished 
hopes in the interest of the cause they would 
serve. 

But the generous devotion of individuals and 
churches that, for instance, made it possible 
for the Church to be fittingly represented and 
take its proper place in the world's religious 
work, deserves especial mention. The age is 
full of opportunities for generous deeds. The 
calls to those who have means are incessant, 
but in the way of a really large missionary 
vision there are few opportunities richer in 
promise than this opening of the door for a 
Church to enter' upon a world-service. We 
have lived perhaps too much in and for our- 
selves. There is a new age for the Church which 
begins to think and act in this field which is the 
world. There is a new age for the minister 
who has been enabled to get out of his narrow 
environment and see life from a new stand- 
point. He should be a bigger and a better man 
and minister, or bigger and better in whatever 
field he labors. All honor to the friends and 



14 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

churches who have thus met an opportunity, 
and I am sure that of that group of fortunate 
voyagers not one but will at least make the 
effort to make the investment pay a good 
return. 

We never know our resources until they are 
tested; those disciples of old who were worried 
about how the multitude was to be fed when 
there was nothing in sight, were not unlike the 
rest of us at almost any time and in any place. 
We are so fearful that there will not be enough 
to go round, simply because there is so little 
in sight. Five thousand to feed and only a 
few loaves and small fishes! There was a 
humble illustration of the same thing on the 
Devonian when some one cried out, "How 
shall we entertain when there is no talent?" 
and then there came the same gracious spirit 
which spoke to the disciples and the multitude, 
and simply said there is enough, if each will 
do his part, and the program of good things was 
so long that much had to be gathered up for 
the next Congress three years hence, — that 
nothing be lost. 

The miracle of unselfishness, — when we bring 
forth the bread of laughter or of life, which we 
have been hiding for our own use, and behold ! 
there is enough for all, and more than enough. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE ANGELS 



15 



And the ship is the world. There are great 
multitudes who are to be fed, and the good 
God hath provided enough for all. As soon as 
the Christ-spirit gets into the hearts of men and 
they stop hoarding and hiding, and bring forth 
their little or much, laying it at his feet; then 
all are fed. 





CHAPTER II 

OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 

THE ANGELS ARE CORDIALLY WELCOMED AND 
CONSIDER THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION 

T seemed to us that it would be im- 
possible to keep up the pace set by 
the Liverpool friends, under the lead 
of the fine organization of Liberals of 
Liverpool and Manchester. We had just about 
time to adjust our clothing to shore duty, when 
we were taken in charge for a whirlwind of hos- 
pitality. The reception at the Royal Institute 
brought us into delightful personal relations with 
our hosts, and through the addresses of welcome 
we learned that we were the finest people in the 
world, and then our speakers in response showed 
that our English hosts were finer than the finest! 
Sunday was a busy day for the ministers. 
Every one preached once and generally twice. 
All the Unitarian churches in Liverpool and 
Manchester, and one Congregationalist, tendered 
their pulpits, and though it was the vacation sea- 
son with them as with us in America, large con- 
gregations were in attendance. 

16 



OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 17 

It was our first experience in preaching in 
Great Britain, and we were all impressed with 
the different atmosphere pervading the churches. 
In Unitarian quite as much as in the Congrega- 
tional churches there is a more marked spirit of 
reverence than we find in our churches at home. 
There may not be any more religion, but there 
is a different way of showing it; perhaps it is 
better — but anyway, it is different. There is 




WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL. 

a real spirit of reverence for the house of God; 
no matter who is to preach or what form the 
service is to take, when the members of the con- 
gregation enter the church, apparently they be- 
gin to worship; that is, they do not wait until 
the service begins before bringing their minds, 
and usually their bodies, into an attitude of 
worship. They have come into a sacred place, 
and bear themselves fittingly. It was not a ses- 
sion of a social club, until interrupted by the 



18 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

music. It was not, apparently, a gossip-ex- 
change. Each family — and mostly, they came 
as families — as it entered the building went 
quietly and decorously to the pew, knelt or 
bowed devoutly in prayer, and then sat still and 
waited. There was no talking, no visiting from, 
pew to pew. It seemed, whether it was really so 
or not, it seemed that the people had come to 
worship, and the minister did not feel that he 
must first call the minds of his flock from their 
wanderings before he could lead them in worship. 

The service generally was much more elabo- 
rate, even ritualistic, than we were accustomed 
to. While the Unitarians of England are not 
one whit behind us in liberality, and Congrega- 
tionalists seem to be beyond us in breadth of 
theological view, all recognize the value of a 
richer service than the plain form we use; in 
fact, some modification of the Book of Common 
Prayer is in almost universal use. 

In the great Unitarian Cathedral Church, as it 
is called, in Ullet Road, where the able Dr. Odgers 
is the successful pastor, the beautiful building in 
all its arrangements and fittings conforms to 
the spirit of more formal worship. There is a 
full ritualistic service including the processional 
of the vested choir, and one feels in the midst 
of such ecclesiastical dignity as is embodied in 



OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 19 

the noble buildings that anything less would be 
inadequate and out of place. Here, too, the 
ministers all wear gowns together with the col- 
ored hoods indicating their degrees, and I con- 
fess that amid such surroundings one would 
hardly feel decent in ordinary clothes. When 
Dr. Hunter of Glasgow, was in America, on his 
memorable tour, many looked upon his gown and 
Doctor's hood with wonder, but in England the 
wonder is when they are not worn. Perhaps 
academic degrees mean more over there, where 
the bestowal of them has not been so abused, 
and perhaps in America it is quite as foolish 
pride which refuses to wear the insignia of an 
honor justly won, as the pride which flaunts 
it unworthily. After all, the law of the fitness 
of things is the one to obey. 

I should like to write a great deal about the 
whole religious situation in Great Britain, for 
it is intensely interesting. In the brief time 
we were there, I learned a great deal, but I 
want to be sure that some of the things I 
learned are so before I transmit them to any 
one else. I have an impression that my 
knowledge is not ripe yet. Perhaps I might 
introduce a few "observations/' and hold con- 
clusions until a later date. 

There is no doubt about there being very 



20 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

decided changes going on, but while the changes 
are in the same direction as those in our own 
country, they are of a different character, be- 
cause they start from a different point and move 
through different conditions. We have re- 
cently had it illustrated in America how a 
church firmly established by a couple of cen- 
turies of life in accepted Orthodoxy, can change 
its long, and long-established creed to the 
simplest and most modern statement that it 
"believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, " and there 
is no excitement, no trial for heresy, and but 
a passing moment of interest. But that sort 
of thing cannot be done in England. There is 
no doubt but that members of the Congrega- 
tional church over there are quite as liberal 
and progressive as any of the American repre- 
sentatives of that denomination. As one talks 
with individuals he must be impressed with 
the large-minded scholarship which has thrown 
off the mental restraints of the old theological 
positions and thinks in modern terms regard- 
ing religious conditions. At the same time, 
however, there is also the impression of a power- 
ful traditional and ecclesiastical restraint. It 
is a fact that nearly every church in Great 
Britain is so endowed in the support of the old 
Westminster Confession of Faith that any two 



OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 21 

or three people in it can make no end of trouble 
for a minister who with his following seeks a 
broader way. There is no place for argument; 
the liberal-minded must get out and leave the 
property behind if the conservative minority 
says so. It is a question, and a serious one, as 
to what can be done without violating the civil 
or the moral law. These men are thoroughly 
conscientious in wanting a change, and in 
wanting it by the right method. 

And another factor in the religious problem 
is one we can hardly appreciate on this side 
of the water, where we have not lived long 
enough to feel the power of tradition. When 
we want a change, we look ahead, and if it 
seems best we make it. When they want a 
change, they look back to see if it can be 
justified in any way. We may think this is 
foolish; as a matter of fact, it is an element 
of power. Changes are not made in a hurry, 
and are only made as the people grow into them. 
They do not pick their fruit of religious progress 
over there until it is ripe, and as a conse- 
quence they do not have so much religious 
dyspepsia as we do, as a consequence of gather- 
ing ours while it is yet very green. 

But the situation is that there is very great 
theological restlessness in the churches of Great 



22 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

Britain; this indicates the presence of life which 
erelong will find the true expression. 

The Universalist Church of America will be 
particularly interested in these new develop- 
ments, for the evidence is almost universal and 
convincing that the whole trend of theological 
thinking is towards the great fundamental 
affirmations of that Church. We are not to 
flatter ourselves that presently we are to see 
developed a new Church over there, and I 
question whether it is desirable to start another 
sect with which to complicate the situation; 
but I see this without the shadow of a doubt, 
that as surely as the theological current con- 
tinues to set in the present direction, it will 
land the Congregationalist and many of the 
other churches squarely on the Universalist 
affirmations as the only sure foundation upon 
which to build the Christian Church of the 
future. The matter of readjustment of prop- 
erty and traditional form of expression will 
take care of itself, if some hot-headed people 
do not confound the whole situation with too 
much impetuosity. 

It will naturally be asked, Where does the 
Unitarian Church of England come in? And 
in sincere sympathy with our brethren over 
the sea who have made such a long and heroic 



OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 23 

struggle for religious freedom, we can see that 
their work is still to go on, but in meeting the 
present theological need of Great Britain the 
Unitarian Church is weak in two particulars. 
First, in the sense in which the word is used in 
England, it is not theologically "Christian." 
Do not misunderstand me here. I know the 
Christian spirit and motive which have con- 
trolled and still do control this great Church, 
and I give it glad honor for all that it has done 
in freeing the name Christian from theological 
incubus; but when centuries have firmly fixed 
the place of Christ in the redemptive scheme for 
humanity, it is not to be changed in the twink- 
ling of an eye. That is, there are many scholars 
and preachers, as well as laymen, who do not be- 
lieve in the Trinity, but who invariably bow the 
head at the mention of the second person in the 
Trinity. They do it because generations and 
generations before them did it, and when they 
changed their mind they did not change their 
custom, but instead sought an academic justi- 
fication for the act. 

"The Christ" has a large and enduring place 
in the worship of Great Britain which the 
"human Jesus " cannot usurp. So in the matter 
of emphasis in Christology the Unitarians are 
handicapped. Even though many may accept 



24 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the Unitarian position, they are not going to 
acknowledge it when they can get practically 
the same thing in their old churches and under 
the old name. 

The fact remains that with all the growing 
liberality in theology in Great Britain, the 
great mass of ministers and people are yet 
and will remain Christocentric in their think- 
ing and allegiance. 

The second serious handicap for the Liberal 
Church at this time is that it is not affirma- 
tive. People who are changing their faith, and 
who, in a way, are in the air, want some real 
and positive place in which to alight; they 
do not want to remain in the air. And the 
church without affirmations and convictions on 
the great elemental doctrines of the Christian 
religion will never call the people to its service 
from the other churches. For they will at 
once say, What is the use of seeking nega- 
tions? We have more now of those things than 
we can manage. People in the condition of 
those in England to-day are asking, not what 
do you disbelieve, but what do you believe? 
They want religious convictions, not contra- 
dictions; they want faith, not doubt; they 
want affirmations, not speculations. That 
form of faith alone can save the situation 



OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 25 

which is first of all Christian, then positive, 
then liberal. 

I could go on and write a volume upon this 
subject, for it is so fruitful in suggestion, and I 
expect to have more to say about it on future 
occasions, but must leave it now with one 
other brief reference. 

The eyes of all England and a considerable 
portion of the world have been turned upon 
Dr. Campbell and his City Temple in London, 
as the most conspicuous illustration of the 
actual religious situation. We expected that 
Dr. Campbell would receive our party at the 
City Temple, and later travel with us to Berlin 
as one of the speakers at the Congress, but a 
serious indisposition prevented both, but no 
one interested in the religious situation need 
lack for information about Dr. Campbell and 
his work. Just how reliable it is, may be a 
question, but almost any one in London can 
give "information. " We received a great deal, 
which we propose digesting before we reach a 
final conclusion. We need not wait, however, 
to know that at the City Temple the labora- 
tory method is being employed in trying to clear 
matters up. And Dr. Campbell is not one to 
be afraid of experiments. We remember well 
how orthodox he was in America a few years 



26 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

ago, on the Atonement, and how readily he 
departed from it all on his return home, and 
the story of his kaleidoscopic career since that 
time is to be read with patience only when we 
realize that it was all experimental. There is 
one remarkable thing, however, in connection 
with his work. It has been our privilege to see 
every week one of his sermons, and in connec- 
tion with it one of his public prayers, and we 
have noted that while the sermons might have 
made a coat of many colors, his prayers have 
been a garment without a seam, so true and 
steadily have they held to the spirit and letter 
of the Master it was his sincere desire and 
purpose to serve. 

Dr. Campbell is a man of rare power, and 
when he finds himself, he will be, or at least may 
be, the dominant religious force in England. He 
passed through all the conventional steps of 
religious progress. First he revolted against 
the old faiths, and particularly against the 
old words; he was of the iconoclastic tribe, and 
people were anxiously wondering where he 
would land. It was easy enough to destroy, as 
every reformer has found, but what is to be 
built on the foundation cleared? 

He was soon made to realize the fate of all 
religious reformers; he made disciples rapidly, 



OVER ON THE OTHER SIDE 27 

from many of which he prayed afterwards to 
be delivered. Every crank in the kingdom 
cried out, "Lo, here is my chance!" And 
presently Dr. Campbell found himself the cen- 
ter of several political and social as well as 
religious movements. He had a notion, — or at 
least he thought it wise to try an experiment, — 
that all these different phases of thought and 
life might be made into one organization. He 
knew they could not be held in any existing 
church and so he organized the "Progressive 
Liberal League," and it rapidly spread over 
the country. It had as an auxiliary and a 
most powerful one, a newspaper called The 
Christian Commonwealth, which, under the 
skillful management of a "born editor," spread 
the tidings, and presently there was a new 
denomination, built on very broad lines, which 
appealed particularly to those unidentified with 
the Christian Church. Then there being some 
criticism, Dr. Campbell appealed to the Congre- 
gational Union, raising the issue as to whether 
or not he was still a Congregationalist in good 
standing. The Union very cleverly decided 
that there was no issue; that no one had ques- 
tioned officially the standing of the minister, 
and it could not be questioned excepting in his 
own church. Then came the next, and it may 



28 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

be final, venture. Dr. Campbell, finding that 
there were so many strange and unaccountable 
and uncontrollable elements in his new or- 
ganization, and realizing that the essential 
thing in a religion was to be religious, and in 
the Christian religion was to be Christian, 
changed the name and the nature of his new 
sect to the "Progressive Christian League," 
and invited those who did not want to come 
under the name " Christian" to get out. 
Thus he has made himself and his church good 
with the Congregational Union, and will have 
accomplished with a good deal of noise what 
many others will accomplish quietly, broadened 
his faith within the Church itself, and related 
his Church to the present life as well as to the 
hereafter. 

So we can see progress is being made in 
improving the religious situation in Great 
Britain, and this illustration is not given as the 
cause of the change so much as the consequence. 
The real forces producing this growth are the 
quiet and thoughtful and scholarly ministers 
who are preaching the broad and liberal Chris- 
tianity of which Dr. John Hunter has recently 
given America so fine an example. 




CHAPTER III 

THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 
IN CHESTER, WARWICK AND STRATFORD-ON-AVON 

HERE is among our acquaintances a 
woman of rare worth and charming 
vision, who loves this world and 
wants to see it, and who rejoices in 
the faith that when she becomes an angel she 
will then be able to see it all — without having 
to pay railroad fares or hotel bills. This delec- 
table vision was realized by our group of Lib- 
eral Religious "Angels." We traveled through 
England, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy 
and France, stopping at the best hotels, riding 
in the best carriages, having the best guides 
and seeing nearly everything and never being 
asked to pay a cent. It comes to mind now 
in an indefinite sort of way that before we 
started from home we did deposit a pretty 
good sized check with that master company of 
tourists' agents, Thomas Cook and Son. But 
during the time we were abroad we were like 
the angels, free from the very disagreeable 

29 



30 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



duty of buying tickets, looking after luggage, or 
paying hotel bills and "tips." 

Sometime I shall have to answer the ques- 
tion as to my opinion of the "personally con- 
ducted tour, " and I may as well do it now 
while it is fresh in my mind. I have heard 
all sorts of things said about and against the 




ST. JOHN'S CHURCH RUINS, CHESTER. 



"brutal tourist agent," who gets our money 
and we — get left. I have received a good 
many warnings against the leader of this 
band, the Thomas Cook and Son. I have had 
considerable experience with this sort of travel- 
ing, as well as much that was independent, 
before this last summer, and while I recognize 
all the possible and actual defects of the system, 



THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 31 

I believe that in our present stage of develop- 
ment it is the easiest and best and most 
economical way to see the world. It may as 
well be recognized at once that "Thomas Cook 
and Son, Tourist Agents," is one of the great 
monopolies of the world. It has as highly 
organized a system as the Standard Oil Com- 
pany or the Meat Trust. Theoretically, we are 
down on the whole bunch, but we still burn the 
oil and eat the meat, and if we want to travel 
with enjoyment and freedom from care, and 
with fair treatment, we travel with Cook. 
This is not an advertisement, but an answer 
to the questions of our friends. From the 
time the arrangements were taken up by Mr. 
Thorpe, Cook's agent in Boston, we were 
impressed with his skill in the arranging of 
details and his uniform courtesy in dealing with 
his people. He was our human encyclopedia. 
When you think of it, it is a very remarkable 
thing to take care of two hundred people for 
two months, look after their tickets, luggage, 
hotels, guides, carriage drives, and so plan 
everything that the best of everything shall 
be seen in the best way. 

Of course, with so many, it is impossible that 
every one shall have the best room at the 
hotels or a seat in the first carriage all the 



32 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

time, but looking over the trip, I am convinced 
that the thing averaged up pretty well; I had 
poor rooms and best rooms, but the average 
was good. And I got all I paid for. The 
trouble with all these personally conducted 
tours is that we tourists do not like to stick 
to our part of the contract, and as soon as we 
make a variation from it the trouble begins. 
It is just as in building a house; when we begin 
to put in the "extras" we start trouble. 
Though the company affords every facility for 
variations, it is hard for the individual to see 
why he cannot shift from one road to another 
and one hotel to another, when his accommo- 
dations have been reserved for months and 
must be paid for by some one. Our con- 
clusion is that for those having only a given 
amount of money and knowing what they 
want to see, if they will make out that itinerary 
and stick to it, especially if it carries them 
through countries where the language is foreign, 
they will see more and see it better and with less 
friction if they press down the check and let 
the tourist company do the rest. Of course 
there were irritating things along the way; of 
course even among angels there are fault- 
finders. It is trying beyond measure not to 
get mail when you expect it, — and if there 



THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 33 

is reason for criticism anywhere upon the 
"system," it is in its management of mail; 
of course one guide to twenty-five or thirty 
people spreads him out pretty thin; but after 
all, as we look it over in memory, we believe 
we saw more, saw it better and with far more 
comfort than those who fought, wept and 
prayed their way alone among unfamiliar 
paths. This great corporation has a grip on 
the most of the world's pathways, but its tolls 
are moderate, and you will get all you pay for; 
— why should we ask for more? 

When we arrived in Liverpool, a day before 
we were expected, our couriers were on the 
landing stage to meet us, and 
had our rooms engaged at the 
hotels, where we were all made 
very comfortable. We were left 
to do as we chose until Mon- 
day morning, when the real land our guide. 
journey began. The "Angels" 
spent the two days at their disposal in Liverpool 
seeing the sights of the city and in getting used 
to English money. On Sunday I was one of 
two "Angels" having the exceptional privilege 
of being a guest in three different English 
homes. In the morning we went down the 
Mersey River to Clereville, one of the beautiful 




34 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

suburbs of Liverpool, where I was invited 
to preach in the Crosby Congregationalist 
Church. I found a beautiful church building 
with all the modern equipments for doing 
practical work, and at the head of it the 
Rev. T. H. Martin, M.A., a relative of the 
Rev. Dr. John Hunter, and one in ardent 
sympathy with the Liberal Gospel Dr. Hunter 
preaches. A man of real scholarship and de- 
vout spirit, he conducted the beautiful service 
in such a way as to lead us all into the spirit 
of worship. My American sermon found a 
most cordial reception. At the conclusion of the 
service we were taken to luncheon in a beauti- 
ful and typical English home, where we were 
made to feel the reality and the charm of 
English hospitality. In the afternoon we took 
tea at the home of Dr. Odgers, the pastor of 
the Ullet Road Unitarian Church, and enjoyed 
another phase of English life; and in the evening 
after the service at the "Cathedral Church," 
of which I have already written, we were the 
guests at dinner at the fine house of Mr. 
Sydney Jones, who will be remembered by 
every one of the "Angels" for his unremitting 
courtesy. 

A special train took us from Birkenhead, just 
across the Mersey from Liverpool, through to 



THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 35 

London, with stops at Chester, Warwick and 
Oxford. It was the first experience of many 
of the "Angels" in European railroad travel, 
and the novelty of the compartment cars 
excited much comment. It was not a fair 
test of them, for we had the whole train, and 
there were no strangers to intrude upon us, 
and through the corridors we could shift about 
as we chose, so that presently congenial groups 
were seated facing each other in such a manner 
as to suggest at once to the frivolous the game 
of "bean porridge hot/' 

Now I do not propose turning myself into a 
"Baedeker" on this journey. Of course we all 
had these famous guidebooks in our hands all 
the way, and I have mine beside me now, but 
what is the use? We arrived in Chester, the 
famous old Roman city, in the early forenoon, 
and by copying a few pages I can tell you all 
about it, — when its walls were built, and how 
much of them remains. I can give you a 
pretty good notion of just how big the cathe- 
dral is; how much it measures this way and how 
much it measures that; when this part was built 
and that part was builded; who designed it 
and who built different parts of it. I can tell 
you how old some of the old walls are, approxi- 
mately, and if I should miss the exact date by 



36 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

three or four hundred years, there are mighty 
few even of those who were there who would 
know the difference. I knew all those things 
the day we were there, for I had them all in 
the book right in my hand; but to tell the 
truth, I have done what most people have done, 
forgotten all the figures and just remember 
the delightful impressions the old, old city and 
the old, old cathedral stamped upon my mind 
and heart. I went into the noble building, and 
it is noble! It almost walls in the great out- 
of-doors, and makes one ashamed to lift his 
tiny voice amidst its vastness. A service goes 
on in one pact while sight-seers roam through 
other parts, and neither disturbs the other. 
We have come across the ocean, we, a body of 
people fully up to the average of intelligence 
of our time, to look upon and admire and 
wonder at the work of those people of a 
thousand years ago, whom we pity for their 
ignorance and lack of opportunity. They had 
no great colleges in those days for the people, 
no "correspondence schools of architecture" 
even. Yet they had enough to eat and 
enough to wear and enough to enjoy, and 
we with our thousand years of added wisdom 
come and sit at their feet to learn how to 
build. 



THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 



37 




OLD WALL, CHESTER. 



And then there is that old wall; but then that 
is not so very old, and seems almost frivolous, 
dating back only about six - — —. -. w ~& ~-..^ 
hundred years. But it is 
such a substantial thing. I 
don't know of anything I 
ever saw that could compare 
with it unless it is that old 
stone wall up in Worcester 
County, Massachusetts, that 
our sturdy old forefathers 
built, not for the sake of the 
wall but to get rid of the 
stone. Perhaps a thousand years from now 
modern Chinese civilization will come over to 
America to study that wall, if long before that 
time we have not ground up the stone to 
macadamize our roads. 

We all liked Chester, even if it did rain, and 
just as soon as we had done our full duty 
of seeing the sights and thinking we would 
remember how many feet long the cathedral 
is and how many feet high the wall is, we 
escaped from our guides and plunged into the 
real Chester hunting for Chesire cats with 
the smile which won't come off, and Cheshire 
cheese with the taste which lingers on your 
tongue as love's young dream lingers in the 



38 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

heart. We found both, and came away from 
the old town, and I have watched it, as Alice 
watched the cat — fading, fading away, until 
historic facts and figures have all gone — but 
the smile remains. 

Warwick was our stopping place and point 
of departure to see the Shakespeare country. 



OLD HOUSES IN WARWICK. 



So large a company could not be accommo- 
dated in the small town, and so some were 
apportioned to Leamington for the night, and 
the rest of us were scattered about in the va- 



THE ANGELS SIGHTSEEING 39 

rious small hotels, the Warwick Arms and the 
"Woolpack" receiving most of us. These 
English hotels have a charm all their own, 
aside from their names, which are historic. 
The proprietors have recognized the asset of 
old things, and so we walk through crooked 
hallways, over uneven floors and into crooked 
rooms, to find comfortable and modern beds 
fitted into antique bedsteads, and excellent 
food served, in some measure, in antique dishes, 
and presently we find our minds conformed and 
our sympathies sympathetic, till, forgetting who 
we are and where we came from, we wander 
through the scenes made familiar by our read- 
ing, and find them peopled with that myste- 
rious and fascinating group which the masters 
of English story created and perpetuated. 

Warwick itself is an interesting old town on 
the banks of the Avon, which in legend at 
least goes back almost to the beginning of the 
Christian era. There are perhaps twelve thou- 
sand inhabitants living there now, or rather 
passing through, as for more than a thousand 
years men have come and gone, some leaving 
their impression, but more coming and going, 
as we, careless and curious "Angels" from 
America, passed through and are already for- 
gotten. 



40 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

Of course Warwick Castle is the point of 
interest, and to most of us it was the first of 
the real old castles which we were to come 
near; and it was no disappointment. Its walls, 
and court and towers and great halls, and old 
armors, and fine pictures and tapestries, and 
the old soldier who led us about and talked of 
all these things as of his own children, made it 
all seem as if we were dreaming and had been 
carried back through the centuries to dwell 
with the heroes of old. It was in the rooms 
of Warwick Castle that we came in contact 
with the first of the paintings of the Old 
Masters, of which we were later to see so many 
that the names of those who made their lasting 
mark on the ages were to become almost a 
confusion. But within and without, the best 
of all, that which will remain longest, because 
it rises so clearly through the confusion of 
memory, was the view of the old castle itself 
from the bridge over the Avon, as its walls 
and towers and buttresses rose in glorious 
dignity and beauty from the caressing forest, 
the embodiment of English song and story. 

Perhaps in the years to come the "Angels" 
may find a rare fascination in the freedom of 
flying, but as our wings are as yet elemental, 
we found the coaching trip from Warwick to 



THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 41 

Stratford-on-Avon most satisfying to our crude 
souls. Some day we shall have good roads in 
America, but not yet; we must grow several 
hundreds of years older. We are trying to 
make some, but after speeding miles over the 
roads of England, with their smooth surface 
and hedged borders and panoramic beauty, 
we are convinced that they only grow, and with 
us it will be centuries before they are ripe. 




ANNE HATHAWAY S COTTAGE. 

There is nothing new to say about the home 
of Shakespeare; it has all been said over and 
over again. And yet how it was renewed to us 
as we rolled through it and out beyond to Anne 
Hathaway's cottage, back to the church where 
the man who made it all lies buried, past the 
schoolhouse where perhaps he learned how to 
write if not to think, to the house in which 



42 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

he was born, and there lingering among the 
relics which a world's devotion has gathered, 
and walking in the garden where in childhood he 
played, we all found a new and very real Shakes- 
peare, which the commonplace people who to- 
day are bartering him for their own living, 
could not sell us, nor could they keep from us. 
There is a phase of Shakespeare's greatness 
which appealed to me there on the banks of the 
Avon, and that was his power to make others 
great. Would plain history ever have given 
such lasting eminence to that great procession 
of characters which he marshaled in an ever- 
lasting pageant? And there in the old town 
how many little lives are yet clinging to his 

memory in the hope of be- 
ing drawn into public view! 
The little children who cry 
out for pennies for their bits 
of lavender, at the door of 
Anne Hathaway's cottage, 
are not so very different 
from the man of great wealth 
who raises a monument there 
that his name may be swept 

SELLING LAVENDER. J * 

along for a few years by the 
eddy that real glory creates in the stream of 
life. Shakespeare may not have supported his 




THE ANGELS SIGHT-SEEING 43 

own family any too well when he was respon- 
sible for them, but think of the thousands in 
that village who are now living upon him, and 
the hundreds of thousands who through the 
years in some way, directly or indirectly, have 
drawn their substance from him. Verily he 
was great! 

In the room where tradition says he was 
born, the windows and walls are covered 
literally with the names of those who have 
come to connect themselves with him and pay 
him tribute. The authorities will not let any 
one write a name there now; even the " Angels" 
had to be content with putting their signatures 
in a big book! It is not good form to scribble 
your name about nowadays; only the vulgar 
do such things, — and yet we found there upon 
the walls the names of Tennyson, Thackeray, 
Walter Scott, Byron and others. 

In the Memorial Theater there was a re- 
hearsal going on of the play which had taken 
the prize, the prize perhaps more coveted than 
any within the reach of modern literature. 
It was to have its first performance that night, 
and the attention of the dramatic world was 
centered upon it, and every "Angel" felt a 
sense of personal pride, for it was written by an 
American. 




CHAPTER IV 

THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 
IN KENILWORTH AND OXFORD 

|ACK to Warwick and then another 
coaching trip in the opposite direc- 
tion to the ruins of Kenilworth, pass- 
ing on the way Guy's Cliff Castle, 
beautiful in itself and particularly in its set- 
ting, but more interesting, the Guy's Cliff mill, 
the oldest mill in constant operation in the 
world. For hundreds and hundreds of years 
that tireless stream has been turning the wheel 
and beneath those low rafters the stones have 
been grinding the corn to feed the swarm of 
human moths which flitted into life and flitted 
out; the brave old mill echoing the song of the 
brook, 

Men may come and men may go, 
But I go on forever." 

I like ruined old Kenilworth; the only 
thing I do not like about it is the futile effort 
of mere man to stay its ruin. When those 
great towers are aweary with their centuries 
of just standing, and lean a bit with longing 
to get back to the earth, it is hardly fair for 

44 



THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 45 

men to chain them up and make them stand 
there yet more centuries. Things have a 
right to die and be buried as well as people. 
We have seen old ruins of people, who have 
lived as long as they wanted to, and leaned 
longingly to the rest that remaineth; and what 




BANQUET ROOM, KENILWORTH. 

we have called love would not let them go, and 
so they have lingered on. It seemed to me 
that some of those fine old buttresses that were 
hung up there with an iron rod were not fairly 
treated, and they will have my sympathy when 
sometime they wrench themselves loose and 
come down to lie cozily in the soft grass that 
will mother them through the ages to come. 

There is probably no more perfect ruin to 
be found than Kenil worth; there is just enough 
of it remaining so that every part can be traced, 



46 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



and it wants but a bit of imagination and one 
may sit beneath the holly trees and see those 
rooms and courts peopled with the men and 
women who in the long ago lived and loved, 
suffered and died, wept and laughed, fought 
each other and helped each other, knew pride 
and humility, built for endurance, and lived not 
to see the completion of their task; all parade 
before us for a brief minute, and are gone. 

It was an American, I believe, who was 
astonished at the intelligence of the people of 




CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD. 



France, where he found that even the little 
children could speak French! And we like- 
wise were astounded at the wisdom of the people 
in the University city of Oxford, where even 
the cab drivers were so well educated that they 
could tell offhand a college building from a 



THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 47 

prison! And it seemed to us at times that 
that was a good deal of an accomplishment, for 
mostly the colleges do not put their best 
face to the street, and it is only after you have 
entered the gate and stand within the quad- 
rangle that you are impressed with the intel- 
lectual and historic surroundings. A bird's- 
eye view of the city — which bird's-eye view 
I did not take from a balloon, nor yet from the 
top of Magdalen Tower, from which point it is 
mostly taken, but I took it from a postal card 
which I bought at the oldest house in Oxford, 
dating back to the thirteenth century — differs 
— the view, not the postal card — from views 
of other cities in that the factory chimneys are 
replaced by towers and towers, which mark the 
location of the unnumbered colleges which 
from Saxon times have been growing in this 
favorable soil. 

One does not need a guidebook nor even a 
guide in Oxford, for the cab driver knows it all. 
I have been wondering since if much that he 
knew was so, but at the time I wondered not 
more at the glorious old buildings than at his 
surprising volubility. He would take me up 
to a blank wall with a hole in it, and tell me 
this was such a college, then drive around the 
square to the other side of the same wall and 



48 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



tell me that was another. And I could not 
contradict him. One begins to think that all 
colleges are alike, unless you look closely and 

discover that, like 
the people they send 
out into the world, 
they have character. 
In general they are 
built on the same 
plan ; mostly they are 
built about the quad- 
rangle, have some- 
thing that bears the 
name of a cloister, 
they all have a chap- 
el of greater or less 
magnificence, a li- 
brary and a tower. 
It takes something 
besides these things 
to make a college, 
but they are the fea- 
tures which are im- 
pressed upon the passing visitor, and they 
show the connection with the antiquity which 
is Oxford's pride. There is one college called 
New College, but do not fancy you will find 
anything very modern about it, for it was 




MAGDALEN TOWER, OXFORD. 



THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 49 

founded in 1379, and there are dozens of others 
which have come into existence since then. 

It would be possible to give a list of these 
buildings which we visited in one day's hasty- 
tour, but the list will mean no more in this book 
than in a guidebook. And after all, it is not 
the buildings of this marvelous University city 
which impress us, — though it would take more 
adjectives than I can command to describe 
them, — but it is the atmosphere of the place 
where for more than a thousand years a whole 
city has been given over to education, and the 
mind thrills with a new sense of its power 
amid such sympathetic surroundings. And 
through these streets memory leads a procession 
of the masters of human life. 

I was profoundly moved. It seemed to me 
that here all that was noblest and best and 
greatest in manhood must have gathered; here 
all exalted ideals should be realized, and I said 
to the driver: "I suppose there is no such thing 
as ignorance and poverty in Oxford." And 
he answered: "Ignorance and poverty is it? 
We have whole streets full of it." I told him 
to take me through them, and he drove away 
from the beautiful seats of learning, and not 
so far away either, and showed me rows on 
rows of little houses, and streets thronged with 



50 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

children, and he said the maximum wage of the 
heads of these households was a pound a week, — 
a little less than five dollars, — and one-fourth 
of it must go for rent, and they were not sure of 
steady work. Yes, the children had some school- 
ing, but not much; they did not need it, for they 
would grow up to fill their parents' places as the 
servants of those who were higher up, or the 
laborers who were to do what others planned. 

That is, in Oxford, as all over the world, 
there is the great law of interdependence, 
which has not yet been recognized in the distri- 
bution of this world's goods. There is the man 
of great wisdom, whose teaching power com- 
mands the attention of the world, but he can- 
not build his own house, nor lay the walls of 
the tower in which he meditates nor the class- 
room in which he lectures. He cannot make 
his own clothes; he cannot cook his own food; 
he cannot make his own bed nor wash his own 
shirt; he cannot harness his own horse nor drive 
the engine which bears him on his journey; he, 
the great man, is absolutely dependent for com- 
fort, the pursuit of wisdom and happiness, yea, 
for life itself, he is absolutely dependent upon 
the poor and ignorant who must be in Oxford 
as well as everywhere on the face of the earth. 
And they are there to-day as they have always 



THE ANGELS CONTINUE TO SEE THINGS 51 

been, and though the names upon the ancient 
tablets are but those of artist and founder, the 
walls in which they were set, whose antiquity 
causeth us to marvel, were laid by the strong, 
rough hands of the toiler who lived and labored 
and died and is forgotten. There is something in 
Oxford for every one to learn, — if he wants to. 
The kind fortune which was guarding and 
guiding the " Angels" on this tour through 
England had provided a most charming experi- 
ence with which to close our visit. Manchester 
College is one of the latest to erect a beautiful 
and impressive group of buildings, though its 
founding dates back more than a century. 
This college is dedicated "to Truth, to Liberty, 
to Religion, " and at its head is the distinguished 
scholar and preacher and administrator, J. 
Estlen Carpenter, who holds a degree from 
Tufts College. A fine reception was given to 
the "Angels" at this college; refreshments were 
served, a most cordial address of welcome was 
given by Dr. Carpenter, and in the rarely 
beautiful chapel, Professor Odgers told the 
unique story of the life of the institution. 
The only shadow upon this altogether delight- 
ful occasion was caused by the necessity of has- 
tening its close that we might catch the train 
for London, where we were due the same night. 




CHAPTER V 

THE ANGELS IN LONDON 
EAT, DRINK AND ARE MERRY 

|ONDON is probably a long way 
from heaven, but the "Angels" 
can hardly expect better treatment 
when they settle down in their 
celestial habitation than they experienced on 
the bank of the Thames during their all too 
brief stay. The sun shone. This may sound 
like exaggeration, even like a shorter and uglier 
word, but it is true. I am rather put to it, as 
it were, to write about London when there 
was neither fog nor rain to find fault with; 
not a bit of beastly weather, don't y' know, 
while we were there. The sun came out and 
so did the King; — even angels could ask no 
more. I have an idea that London was enter- 
taining the "Angels" unawares, for while it 
seemed to us that we were being shown great 
consideration, there were a great many people 
in the city who did not know we were there, 
and even yet are ignorant of the fact. You 
see, London is really quite a big village, larger, 

52 




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p 

& 
o 

« 

H 
H 

02 

M 
H 

H 
<5 

02 

H 

a 
-1 

a 

w 



54 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



I should say, in fact, than Chicago feels. And 
one must make a large noise if he expects 
London to listen. London does turn its head 
with a gracious smile when two or three tourist 
cars loaded with Americans to the brim, muzzle 




HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON. 



or rail — or whatever indicates that they are 
full — squeeze through the everlasting jam of 
vehicles, into the best places to see the sights, 
but so soon are we forgotten. 

I looked up all the figures about the city, 
the distance around it, the area covered in 
square miles, the number of streets and their 



THE ANGELS IN LONDON 55 

miles in length, and a lot of other things. I 
was going to write them all down in my 
Journal; but, you remember, I never wrote the 
Journal, and now I have forgotten them all. 
I can only say, " See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
article, London." There are a great many 
things in that article that I have forgotten. And 
besides, they are copyrighted; still further, I do 
recall now, they are not up to date. I think 
a correspondent writing letters home from a 
foreign shore should give things as they are. 
Now London Bridge has always had a great 
fascination for me ever since I used to sing 
with the other small children that it was 
"falling down," and the things that held my 
horrified interest were the "spiked heads of 
malefactors exposed to all winds and weathers 
upon the battlements." I have crossed the 
bridge several times and not a spiked head did 
I see. No doubt among the multitude which 
surged back and forth there were plenty of 
malefactors, — of great wealth or great poverty, 
— but I was keenly disappointed not to see 
a single head set in gory splendor on a spike 
on the battlements. I did see a good many 
women with long spikes thrust through their 
hats, — and heads apparently, — but that did 
not satisfy my historic sense and my craving for 



56 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

horrors. Even Madam Tussaud's waxworks 
and the delicate instruments of torture pre- 
served in the Tower of London are but poor 
substitutes for a genuine " spiked head on the 
battlement exposed to all winds and weathers." 

The aerie where the "Angels" roosted during 
our stay in London was called the St. Ermins 
Hotel, in Westminster. I confess to no little 
embarrassment at times in writing about this 
flock of " Angels." I do not know just how 
far I can safely pursue my figure, but angels 
suggest wings, and wings suggest birds, so I 
think "roosting" will not inadequately describe 
the stopping of the whole covey, excepting my- 
self; like Lord Dundreary's robin, I flocked all 
by myself. 

Among the conspicuous forces in London 
making for larger religious liberty and larger 
religious service for human good the Rev. Dr. 
W. Evans Darby is to be counted. Dr. Darby 
is a Congregationalist minister who has given 
his life to the cause of International Peace, and 
is the efficient secretary of the English Peace 
Society, and one of the most effective speakers 
on this great theme in the world. His book 
entitled "Beneath Bow Bells" is made up of 
a series of lectures in which he establishes the 
peace plea on the sure foundation of elemental 



THE ANGELS IN LONDON 57 

Christian principles. Dr. Darby has been 
prominently connected with the City Temple, 
and is one of the leaders of that religious 
liberality which, being Christian, is the hope of 
the Christian Church in Great Britain. He is 
thoroughly convinced that the faith of the Uni- 
versalist Church of America is the ultimate 
goal of the theological unrest of England. It 
was his desire to bring about closer relations 
between the English and American Liberals 
that led to the writer's being made his guest and 
a temporary member, while in London, of the 
National Liberal Club, and that was the reason 
why I "flocked by myself." 

I cannot forbear expressing at this time my 
appreciation of the honor and pleasure as well 
as the opportunity thus afforded. The club- 
house is a magnificent building situated on 
Whitehall Place and the Thames Embankment, 
not far from the House of Parliament, and it 
is difficult to find a more comprehensive and 
delightful view than I enjoyed from my win- 
dows, extending from the House of Parliament 
to St. Paul's, including the whole sweep of the 
Thames from Westminster Bridge to the Tower 
of London. The first President of the Club 
was the Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, and it in- 
cludes in its membership nearly every promi- 



58 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



nent Liberal throughout the Kingdom. Here 
it was my privilege to entertain a group of 
British clergymen representing several denom- 
inations, whom Dr. Darby desired to have meet 
several American ministers. 

While I was enjoying the luxury of Club 
life, the rest of the " Angels" were seeing the 
sights by the Cook direct and rapid method, 




THE THAMES FROM THE NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB 



which, when one has but little time and less 
money, is the best method. It was my second 
visit to London, and so clearly was the great 
city impressed upon my mind by my former 



THE ANGELS IN LONDON 



59 



visit, that I had a sense of freedom to choose 
some of the special features which are never 
exhausted in one or many visits. But instinc- 




THE MONUMENT, LONDON. 



tively I turned to certain things I wanted to 
see again, rather than to seek for novelties. 
And in all of London there is nothing that gets 
hold of me so impressively as St. Paul's. Why 
this is I cannot tell. It is not the bigness, 



60 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

though it is almost beyond measurement by 
the eye; it is not its beauty, for aside from the 
magnificent sweep of its larger lines it is not 
beautiful; it is not its memorials, for they can- 
not compare with those of Westminster. I 
think it must be just the sense of age and dig- 
nity and historic purpose of the place. 

When one stands in St. Paul's he is standing 
on ground which for almost if not quite two 
thousand years has been occupied as a place 
of worship. And around it has clustered every- 
thing in the form of human life, from the prim- 
itive natives of Britain whose crude altar was 
superseded by the Roman temple to Diana, 
that in turn by a Saxon church, built by Ethel- 
bert, King of Kent, through the centuries when 
fire fought with man for the possession of the 
place, and each time man built better than 
before, until just two hundred years ago the 
finishing stone was laid which completed the 
present magnificent pile. I have been quoting 
here, just to try to find out why I like St. 
Paul's; and I want to quote one thing more: — 
the total sum of money expended to complete 
this great cathedral is given as seven hundred 
and thirty-six thousand seven hundred and 
fifty-two pounds, two shillings and three and 
one-fourth pence ! — because I shall never be 



THE ANGELS IN LONDON 61 

satisfied until I know what that one-fourth 
pence was spent for! 

But what a significant record, and how a 
world's history is typified in the story of these 
two thousand years of human progress ! Around 
this place of worship races and peoples and na- 
tions have risen and fallen, come and gone, each 
pausing to worship, each rising a little higher 
than the one preceding, and now about this 
great monument to the craving of the souls of 
men surges the life of the greatest city of the 
world; and some day it, too, will pass on its 
way, and a new and yet more wonderful civili- 
zation will come to worship in possibly a yet 
more wonderful temple. 

Charles Dickens made England and particu- 
larly London for most Americans. We may not 
be up on our English history, but when we get 
into old London and catch the names of the 
streets made familiar by his books, there is such 
a comforting sense of homeyness and of hav- 
ing been there before, that the city's material 
greatness and romantic history fade away, and 
we wander with the dear old friends through 
Dickensonia. For a boastfully practical peo- 
ple, we are an imaginative and emotional lot. 
We of course want to know all we can and 
see all we can of the wonders we have come 



62 A. SUMMER FLIGHT 

three thousand miles to see, and yet, for the 
pure pleasure of it, the heart- thrill of enjoy- 
ment, it is better to buy a pair of gloves in 
Cheapside and a book in Fleet Street. But 
the trouble is that old London is passing as is 
everything else; the names of the old streets 
remain, but the taxi is driving away the old 
cabman, and the motor bus is putting the 
horses and their drivers out of business. Of 
course it is all better; we can go faster and with 
far more comfort, but it is not the London we 
dreamed about, and when we go down and are 
shot through the "tube" under the historic 
and sacred ground, we might as well be in 
commonplace New York. 

Of course we came, as all tourists do, to see 
London, but we had an advantage over all the 
others in the opportunity of coming into close 
touch with some of the people. We were 
entertained right royally. The welcome which 
was ours as we landed in Liverpool we did not 
think could be equaled anywhere else, and lo, 
in London it was larger, even if no better. The 
Liberals of the city were indefatigable in their 
attentions to our welfare. On two afternoons, 
in the historic Essex Hall, tea was served, the 
Women's Social Club acting as hostess, which 
gave an opportunity to meet personally our 



THE ANGELS IN LONDON 63 

English friends and get a little touch of real 
English life. But the function which was the 
climax of our visit to England came on Satur- 
day night, when the grand banquet was given 
by the Laymen's Club at the Holborn Restau- 
rant. We were subjected to many forms of 
entertainment during our triumphal journey 
through Europe, but I can think of nothing 
which exceeded the good taste, the good 
management and the social success of this 
dinner tendered to us by the men of the 
Unitarian Church of London. The place in 
which it was held is notable in the city, — a 
magnificent hall built especially for a banquet- 
ing room, and being decorated, when the tables 
were spread presented a scene which of the 
kind can have few superiors. 

As each guest arrived he was given the 
beautifully printed menu and order of exercises, 
and also a large folded sheet on one side of 
which was printed an alphabetical list of the 
four hundred guests, and on the other a diagram 
of the tables with the location of each one, so 
that it was possible from our places at the 
table to locate any one we desired, and be- 
come acquainted with all our neighbors. The 
dinner itself was of excellent quality and justi- 
fied the warning that we had received, that the 



64 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

English people know what to eat as well as 
how to eat. Perhaps it is sufficient to say 
there was something besides "Angel" cake. 

A feature of this banquet which excited the 
interest of the Americans was the presence of 
a functionary who "goes with the hall," a 
large and very impressive man, with a large 
voice, who stands behind the chairman, com- 
mands attention, makes all announcements, 
relieving the presiding officer of all care and 
securing what is often difficult to secure in so 
large a company, uninterruped interest. When 
the command thunders forth above the con- 
fusion, "Silence, please, to the President," 
or "Silence, please, to the toast; the toast is, 
'to His Majesty the King!'" even the voluble 
American would not presume to break the 
responsive quiet. 

Then we had, of course, speeches and 
speeches, excellent in character, rising to the 
occasion, which was the speeding on their 
way of a great company of disciples of reli- 
gious liberty going to meet other disciples from 
other lands. Mr. R. M. Montgomery, A.M., 
president of .the club, was most gracious in 
his words of welcome, and other Englishmen 
touched the chords of national and religious 
fraternity. The responses from America were 



THE ANGELS IN LONDON 65 

made by the Rev. Dr. T. R. Slicer of New 
York, the Rev. J. Harry Holden of Massa- 
chusetts, and the Rev. Dr. Chas. W. Wendte, 
the secretary of the Congress. 

It was rather too near the midnight hour 
when this happy occasion closed, for a body 
of religious pilgrims, for I fear it was Sunday 
morning before some of the "Angels" folded 
their wings in slumber. But it was good 
training for that which was to come, for we 
were presently to learn that in Germany no 
night is recognized excepting as a period 
during which the human animal eats, drinks 
and is merry. 

Our Sunday in London was a very busy day 
for those of us who had to preach and get back 
to our stopping place, pack our trunks and be 
ready to start for Holland in the afternoon. 
But no one was left behind. 

My own Sunday was a memorable occasion. 
I had received the appointment to preach at 
the Unitarian Church in Islington, which is 
one of the historic churches of London. It 
was there that Dr. Martineau spent the last 
years of his life as a parishioner, after he had 
retired from the work of the pulpit, and there 
he had frequently preached. But it was inter- 
esting to know that the most eminent preacher 



66 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

of modern times, after he had finished his own 
work, felt that his soul needed the ministra- 
tions of the Church, and that he was a regular 
attendant and devout worshiper. The church 
is not large in that land of great cathedrals, 
but will accommodate five or six hundred, and 
though it was the summer season, the vacation 
season as with us, there was a fine congrega- 
tion. The present pastor of the church is the 
Rev. Dr. Tudor Jones, a man of rare personal 
charm, wide experience and conspicuous abil- 
ity. He is a Welshman, who was educated in 
Germany and has spent much of his ministry 
in Australia and New Zealand. He was fitted 
for the Presbyterian ministry and served in 
that fellowship until his own liberality drove 
him to the more congenial company of the 
Unitarians. He represents the type of Liberal 
who will redeem the world. He has brought 
from his old fellowship that which so many 
of us Liberals lack, the real spirit of religious 
devotion. 

The time has come for our departure from 
England, and we are going with happy antici- 
pations, and not less happy memories of what 
to most of us is our Mother Country, which 
can never seem really foreign. 




CHAPTER VI 

IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 

REVEALING AN INCIDENT OF THE ANGELS 7 
INVASION OF HOLLAND 

DO not intend to air my foreign 
languages in these commonplace 
records of a commonplace journey, 
but the above phrase, which is in 
the very best guidebook Dutch, so perfectly 
expresses a condition and not a theory, that I 
am persuaded to make use of it, for being 
freely translated these words mean in English, 
"I want a bedroom/' and their significance 
will appear as the tale unfolds. 

Our route to Holland was via the Hook 
of Holland. We arrived at Harwich on the 
English coast, from which place the Channel 
steamer sails, at about ten o'clock at night, 
and immediately went on board the fine boat 
which was to carry us across the dreaded 
Channel. All our rooms were engaged, so that 
all we had to do was to step to the purser's 
office, give our names and get the keys or direc- 
tions to our staterooms. Now be it known that 

67 



68 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the management of the party had made out a 
list of the people and printed it and sent it 
on in advance so that the rooms could be 
properly assigned. But unfortunately the man- 
agement had not yet become acquainted with 
the personnel of the group, and some serious 
mistakes were made in the printing, so that 
good, kind and gentle bachelors appeared in 
the list with "Mrs." or "Miss" before their 
names. Maidens of tender years appeared 
with simply the initials of their names, in no 
way indicating whether they were male or 
female, and as for ministers, they were bunched 
under the "Rev." with no regard to sex, age 
or previous condition of servitude. There had 
been reserved about seventy-five staterooms 
for over two hundred people, which would 
mean about three in a room, and the assign- 
ment under the misguiding printed list, in 
about fifteen minutes, brought about a situa- 
tion which made me feel that this was no place 
for "Angels," and cause some of the brethren 
to mutter, "What would my congregation 
say?" 

Meanwhile the boat had sailed, and we were 
making our way out into the North Sea, where 
the whole British Navy was having its maneu- 
vers and literally flooding the place with light 



IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 69 

from innumerable searchlights. It was an 
embarrassing situation. But just there the 
angelic nature came out strong, and there was 
an immediate demand for a cold deck and a 
new deal. (This figure is quoted from an 
unregenerate westerner, but suggests what 
followed.) With slight irritation and no end 
of laughter, a new arrangement was finally 
consummated. We got our rooms and plunged 
into the "horrors" of the Channel passage, 
only to bring disappointment to me again, for 
the night was beautiful, the sea was still, 
the boat was steady and I had missed another 
chance to see a seasick "Angel." 

The next morning came very early, for we 
were called at five o'clock and turned out upon 
the dock at the Hook of Holland, and we were 
really on a foreign shore, for a strange language 
smote our ears, strange money tried our 
patience, and there was a dock-hand with real 
wooden shoes, which he was wearing without 
a sign of self-consciousness. 

The Hook of Holland is not simply a place 
to arrive at, it is also a very good place to 
depart from. At the railway station, we had 
breakfast which consisted mostly of ham and 
eggs and fun. The restaurant furnished the 
ham and eggs and we the fun! It was the first 



70 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

experience of most of us in talking to foreign- 
ers, and it was curious to note the common 
notion that if you speak English with sufficient 
deliberation and loudness any decent foreigner 
will know what you mean, and if he does not 
the first time, you speak it all over again a 
little louder, and then if he fails to compre- 
hend you begin to make signs. The sign 
language is the universal speech. The only 
trouble is that our sign for more ham and eggs 
differs from the Dutchman's, and our sign for 
coffee seems to have a strange resemblance to 
his sign for beer. But sometimes we presume 
upon the ignorance of these foreigners, as I 
myself discovered to my shame, when, later in 
the day, at The Hague, I went into a large store 
and, selecting the most intelligent-looking of 
the fair clerks, began to make signs to her, 
wiping my nose furiously and holding out my 
hands beseechingly, and presently she smiled 
patronizingly, and said in perfect English, 
"Would you like to look at some handker- 
chiefs?" 

The Hague is one of the most beautiful cities 
in Holland, and impressed us all with its size. 
We Americans have perhaps been thinking of 
it from the historic point of view, which would 
give its earlier career as a sort of pleasant re- 



IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMEE, HEBBEN 71 

sort for royalty and its accompaniments, on the 
outskirts of which is the famous "House in the 
Wood," the scene of the International Peace 
Congress. But behold, here was a city of a 
quarter of a million inhabitants, with most 
attractive shops to lure away our hard-earned 
money, great wide and attractive streets, fine 
parks, and museums of art, not to be ignored. 




THE CARRIAGE PROCESSION AT THE HAGUE. 

The "Angels" did not ignore it; we took 
possession of it, to the great delight of the 
inhabitants. We forbore to use our wings, as 
carriages had been provided, fifty of them, and 
we made a procession through the streets, 
awakening unbounded enthusiasm. Some were 
fortunate enough to have American flags, which 
they waved constantly, bringing response from 
every door and window. 

Here we "did" our first Continental Gallery, 
— the Royal Museum, — and began to pack 
our minds with the names of the Old Masters. 



72 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

Here we found Rembrandt (particularly his 
School of Anatomy), Rubens, Holbein, Murillo, 
Velasquez, Van Dyck, Jan Steen and others 
that before had been but names of mysterious, 
almost mythical beings who had performed 
miracles in the long ago. We did not know 
very much about art, but in this first gallery 
we learned why these men were both Masters 
and great, for they had caught some of the 
lines and coloring of creation which never 
change while generations come and go, and 
they had spoken intelligibly to each and every 
one. Others paint for the day in which they 
live and pass with the day. 

That drive to the House in the Wood is 
memorable, — through shaded roads, following 
nearly all the way one of the little canals, and 
returning through the Bosch, the sleepy old 
wood, where not only the leaves but also the 
trunks of the trees and the surface of the water 
are all of the softest green in exquisite harmony 
of color, and so closely are the branches of the 
trees interlaced that it seemed like passing 
through a shadowy bit of fairyland. To the 
practical American that damp mossy covering 
on the bark of the trees, and the "beautiful 
green" scum on the waters of the canal, raised 
some hygienic questions, and yet we saw no 



IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 73 

healthier race than these solid and stolid 
Hollanders. It was the Queen's birthday 
when we were there, and all the soldiers were 
out, and the streets were decorated in glad 
array. And of course the people were out 
too, so we had a chance to see them at their 
best, and their best is very good. 

The Hague will always be looked upon as 
the nursery of international peace. Here is 
to rise the sun of that great day when war 
shall be no more between nations of brothers. 
The great Palace of Peace provided by Mr. 
Carnegie is nearing its completion, and to it 
more and more will enlightened people drive 
their servants — who are called rulers — to 
serve the good instead of the evil of the 
world. 

It seemed like a verbal vacation to the 
"Angels" to be able to say "dam" so often 
without being rebuked by their own consciences 
or some other pestiferous insect. Nearly every 
place has this profane ending to its name, and 
in conversation we at first finished each word 
with a whistle instead of the last syllable. 
But it is astonishing how familiarity with evil 
leads one to embrace it; in time we got so we 
could put most of the emphasis on the last 
syllable of some places. 



74 A SUMMER FLIGHT. 

What a horrible thing is this civilization we 
are so anxious to introduce, and then we hunt 
the round earth over to find for our enjoy- 
ment the place where it is not! The civilized 
Amsterdam is quite up to date, with its modern 




IN AMSTERDAM. 



shops and theaters, electric cars and such; and 
who can ever care for a great city of over half 
a million people who are doing the same things 
in the same way every one else is doing them? 
But uncivilized Amsterdam is altogether a dif- 
ferent thing and altogether charming. To get 
out in early morning when the people are coming 



IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 75 

in to the market from the surrounding country, 
mostly by boats through the tangle of canals, 
and see the perfectly bewildering variety of 
costumes, a veritable riot of color and yet 
never inharmonious, and then at night to get 
into the chief shopping street, which is turned 
into a fair, where great crowds surge back and 
forth, just having a good time in the sense of 
companionship and motion, is worth a voy- 
age across the ocean. Perhaps some one be- 
sides the Americans bought something, but 
very little trading is done; it is just the com- 
munity spirit, when all are out dressed more 
or less in their best, and the queer ones are 
those who have nothing better to wear than 
the wretched things designed by Worth and 
Poole. I must think a little more about these 
things of personal adornment and habits, in 
another chapter, for I find the normal char- 
acter of any people best expresses itself through 
these things. 

Of course there was a reception at Amster- 
dam. A former session of the International 
Congress of Religious Liberals had been held 
there, and there is a large liberal element in 
the religious life of the city. This reception 
was wholly informal, not like the others along 
the way, but just to show to the pilgrims the 



76 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

spirit of fellowship and give them God-speed 
on their way. 

A carriage drive was taken about the town, 
with stops at all the places of interest, with a 
long stop at the National Museum, where are 
to be found some of the best pictures in Europe, 
especially of the Dutch school. This seemed 
to be the headquarters of the Rembrandt collec- 
tion, one portion of the gallery being devoted 
entirely to this artist. 

In my early years I was brought up on the 
banks of the old Genesee canal in western New 
York, and by the time I was ten years of age 
was considerable of a navigator, having on one 
memorable occasion voyaged for one whole 
day over that wild waste of waters, during 
which time I had traveled six miles. I thought 
I knew something about canals, but in Amster- 
dam I was but the most ordinary amateur. 
The city is called the Venice of the North, and 
one is impressed with the thought that there 
is water, water everywhere, and only beer to 
drink. The city is literally built on the banks 
of innumerable canals, or else the canals have 
been built against the city; anyway it appears 
that when we are not walking beside a canal 
we are crossing bridges over them, while 
through them sets the whole tide of commercial 



IK MOET EEN SLAAPKAMER HEBBEN 77 

life. They are generally very attractive, but 
often need straining. And in spite of the dis- 
position to know only the best things on this 
whole trip, there were times when looking 
from my window out over one of these water- 
ways there came into my mind this adapta- 
tion: 

You may clothe the canal with art if you will, 
But the smell of the thing will hang round it still. 





CHAPTER VII 

IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 

ALSO OF THE WINDMILL, THE CANAL AND 
SEVERAL OTHER THINGS 

f HAT a picnic Cervantes's old hero 
would have had in Holland! 
There are places where he could 
not have couched a lance in any 
direction without spitting a dozen of the fierc- 
est windmills which ever challenged a brave 
knight. Among the "Angels" there were 
preachers who confessed that in all their fight- 
ing of windmills, through a long and vapid 
ministry, they never saw anything like it! 
But we found these engines of war quite 
harmless, and rather interesting, as they 
break the monotony of hundreds of miles of 
flat country with a little touch of the artistic, 
quite restful to the eye of the aesthetic and 
quite exciting to the eye of the curious. 

Canals and windmills and wooden shoes are 
Holland to the passing traveler. Of course 
there are other things of value and of interest. 
I could fill whole pages with statistics of good 

78 



IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 79 

and wonderful things from the history of this 
brave little land, but they would all finally 
cluster about the canals, which are the arteries 
of her life; the windmills, which catch the 
breath of heaven and harness it to human 
needs; and the wooden shoes, in which stand 
as fine people as walk the earth. 

To get into the real Holland you must leave 




THE WATERWAY OF HOLLAND. 



the great cities, and a covey of the "Angels" 
took the steamer one morning at Amsterdam 
for the all-day trip to the uncontaminated 
town of Volendam and the island of Marken. 
Our course took us through the lock into the 
canal, once the main channel of the city's 
commerce to the sea, and from that into one 
of the innumerable little canals which seem to 
be everywhere but to go nowhere in particu- 
lar, and hour after hour we sped smoothly 
along past prosperous farms, where in the 



80 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

wide fields multitudes of fat cattle were feed- 
ing on the most luxuriant of pastures. Every- 
where were men and women working together 
in the fields, and occasionally along the banks 
of the canal or in the street of some little 
village through which we passed would be 
seen the little carts drawn by three dogs and 
sometimes by a woman. 

Broek-in-Waterland was our first stop, and 
we had a delightful run through the quaintest 
of little villages, which is noted for its exquisite 
cleanliness. And there was nothing to make 
it dirty; even the troups of pudgy little chil- 
dren, clattering along with 
their wooden shoes and 
funny little caps, look good 
enough to eat. I was fasci- 
nated with their shoes, and 
though one could buy all 
* \ ,„. he wanted in the stores, all 
newly whittled or turned 
out, or however they make 
them, I wanted the real 

CHILDREN ON THE ^ ^ ^ ^^ fo ^ 

TOWPATH. ° ' 

and so started on a cam- 
paign to get a pair right off the feet of a child. 
As I could speak no Dutch, and they could un- 
derstand no English, I soon got the reputation 





IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 81 

of being demented, and when finally, through 
an interpreter, I made them understand that 
I really wanted an old pair of wooden shoes, 
right off the feet of one of the children, when I 
could get new ones at the store, the suspicion 
was confirmed that I was stark mad. But I 
persisted, and finally found a little girl, who was 
instructed by her father (probably "to let 
the man make a fool of himself if he wanted 
to"), to sell her shoes to me, and so she took 
my money and I took her shoes and brought 
them to America, and she ran home in her 
stockinged feet to tell her mother of the crazy 
man who came from America to Broek-in- 
Waterland to buy old shoes off little children's 
feet, when he could have got new ones right 
out of the store for the same money. 

At Monnikendam, one of the quaintest of 
old towns, whose present life is nothing but a 
dream of the past when it was a real seaport, 
we came up through the locks and out from 
the canal into the Zuider Zee, a great wide 
sea which forms the northern boundary of 
Holland, and out across its shallow waters to 
the island of Marken, where old Holland 
remains with all the charm of ancient costume 
and custom, and where we spent one of the 
rarest hours of a lifetime, right in the midst 



82 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

of the home life of this colony of fisher folk 
who are not ashamed to live as their fathers 
lived and do as their forefathers have done 
for many generations. 

And here is a people contradicting about 
every standard of our modern life, doing the 
things which to us would mean destruction, 
and yet who ever saw a healthier or happier 
lot of God's children on this sunny old earth? 
There are homes which violate about every 
hygienic law, even those we in our wisdom 
have transplanted into civil law. They are 
all built on the very banks of the water, which 
not infrequently sweeps up actually under the 
house. The houses are but little more than 
boxes, with ceilings so low you can touch them; 
the beds are but alcoves cut in the side walls, 
and covered by curtains so that no breath of 
fresh air can by any possibility penetrate to 
the sleeper; a bit of stone is set in the floor, 
on which stands the brazier over which the 
cooking is done. 

All the people, men, women and children, 
wear the wooden shoes. The dresses of the 
women are padded out until they look like 
animated balloons, and the boys and men 
wear their whole stock of pantaloons, number- 
ing from three to a dozen, at one time, until 



IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 83 




each leg is bigger than his whole body. All work 

and play together. Fish and hay are about 

the only resources of 

the island, and the 

women handle the hay 

from the cutting to the 

loading on the boats 

quite as handily as the 

men. Their houses are 

all open to the visitors, 

and within one finds 

the walls covered with 

the beautiful old blue 

delftware, every pos- -J^^BHB 

session of the owner a citizen of marken. 

being displayed. In 

one house was a little baby two weeks old, 

dressed as all the others are, even to its cap; 

and as everyone who entered made an offering 

of coin which was put in the tiny hand, I was 

impressed with the thought that after all the 

best investment in the isle of Marken is a 

new baby. The young mother was stared 

at, her household was examined, and the baby 

investigated to the last degree, while the mother 

smiled and smiled. And within a very short 

time she will be out pitching hay or pushing a 

big boat, or it may be hitched to a cart with a 



84 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

couple of dogs; and still she will smile and 
smile. 

And our women "Angels" pitied her, be- 
cause she would go on that way through her 
life, because she had to wear such outlandish 
clothes, and because she might live and die 
right there on that little island and never go 
traveling about the world. 

Well, I was sorry for her too, for I knew she 
would never, never have a hobble skirt. That 
instead of tying her feet together at the com- 
mand of fashion, she would continue to build 
out great pads on her hips until she looked like 
a barrel; but I thought, she has one advantage, 
the pads on the hips will help to support the 
baby when she has to carry it, while the hobble 
skirt, — but I am all off; women who wear 
hobble skirts do not have babies. But the 
Marken young woman will never be able to 
join a Browning club. I doubt if she ever has 
a chance to play Bridge, poor thing! It may 
be she will never carry a sign, "Votes for 
Women." She will not go to the opera in a 
dress that is too short at one end. She can- 
not dance till three in the morning through a 
whole winter and break down with nervous 
prostration during Lent. She has to wear 
those great wooden shoes, when, if she only 



IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 85 

had the advantages of the really up-to-date 
woman, she could wear a five-inch shoe with 
a three-inch heel on a seven-inch foot and think 
she was graceful. And she has to work till 
her muscles are strong, and her eye is bright, 
and her laugh will reach out across the Zuider 
Zee to her sister who laughs back to her from 
Volendam. Yes, I am sorry for her in a way; 
she is downtrodden from the point of view of 
some of us, but after all, I wonder if she does 
not get the best of us. She lives longer, has 
all the pleasure she knows and wants, and 
nothing would make her quite so unhappy as 
to "improve her condition." There are the 
sentimentalists who say, "But think of the 
mental and nervous strain, think of her yearn- 
ing soul struggling to be free, think how she 
must feel to have to wear such costumes and 
endure such surroundings!" And there is 
where the sentimentalist is all wrong; from the 
sentimentalist's standpoint it might be, but 
there is not a particle of mental and nervous 
strain and soul yearning in that Marken young 
woman. She is doing just what she has been 
hoping to do all her life; she is wearing just 
what she has been looking forward to wearing 
ever since she was a child, and her yearning 
soul is far better satisfied than are the souls 



86 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

of fifty millions of women who are killing them- 
selves and all their friends in their mad attempts 
to keep up with the procession of pseudo cul- 
ture, ultra fashion and debauched pleasure. 

I am sorry because of the Marken women — 
because there are not more of them. 

We landed at Volendam on our way back, 
and though there came a dashing shower 
which cut off any real visiting of the town, we 
got a little bit of the quaintness and color of 
this favorite resort of artists, who, after all 
their training in the best of art schools in the 
new and old worlds, come to this out-of-the- 
way place to learn how to color their pictures 
from the coloring these crude and humble 
fishermen put upon their houses and weave into 
their garments. Verily the world is topsy- 
turvy; the wise ones come to learn archi- 
tecture of the primitive children of men, and 
the educated find most wisdom as they com- 
mune with the foolish. 

Through the twilight, the long twilight of 
these northern lands, we sailed back through 
the Zuider Zee, and we looked out across the 
waters and over the long reaches of the great 
flat country to the distant horizon against 
which were silhouetted the great windmills, 
all sleeping in the calm, and the tall trees 



IN THE LAND OF THE WOODEN SHOE 87 

which here and there reach straight up against 
the light. We came again to the canal and 
were locked through to the music of a cornet- 
ist who, recognizing the mark of the American, 
played " America" and "The Star-spangled 
Banner," and our hearts sang of home and of 
friends away across the big sea-water, and of 
the land we love, which took the spirit of her 
life in the long ago from brave little Holland, 
which has something to teach us yet. 




CHAPTER VIII 

THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 

WHICH BEFELL THEM IN COLOGNE AND ON THE 

RHINE 

^Ss^SSOES it not seem to you that good 
JlrSiBl people have trouble enough in this 
*^$Mm °^ wor ld without being subjected 
"^ -^1 to all sorts of temptations? It is 
well enough to keep the sinners busy and 
so help to keep them out of mischief and 
strengthen their moral backbone, but why 
should the feelings of our particular group 
of "Angels" be harrowed up by the seductions 
of the carnal appetites, and put to tests of 
restraint which gave a pretty severe wrench to 
the heavenly strings of our pure and tender 
hearts? And besides, it might have spoiled 
my chapter about Cologne had any one been 
unequal to the test, for I have no desire to 
write of fallen angels. I would not have you 
think for a moment that none of us stumbled 
along the way, but this veracious chronicle is 
not marred by a single instance of a serious 
lapse from innoxiousness by an American 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 89 

"Angel." It is not improbable that by com- 
mitting the sin of omission I add grace to the 
record, but on the whole I am proud of the 
way in which we disported and deported our- 
selves under all circumstances. 

It was a long ride from Amsterdam to 
Cologne, mostly through a country that would 
have reminded us of our own middle West 
had there not been so much of formality and 




COLOGNE FROM THE RHINE. 

regularity. A clever woman in our compart- 
ment observed that it seemed to her that she 
was in one of the German gardens she used to 
make when a child, of the wooden trees and 
houses which came as toys from Germany, for 
the trees were so stiff and formal that no 
wind could be so disrespectful as to tickle them 
into motion, and the houses were set here and 
there just as a great giant baby might have 
placed them, while scattered about were the 



90 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

figures of men and women so still that one 
could easily imagine that they were pegged 
fast to the ground so they would not fall over. 

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when 
we arrived at Cologne and were met at the 
station by a committee of ''The Friends of 
Evangelical Freedom in the Rhinelands," who 
proceeded to tell us in very beautiful German, 
most impressively spoken, where our hotels 
were to be found, and that at five p.m. we 
were to be their guests at a dinner in the Great 
Hall of the Lesegesellschaft, which proved to 
be the beginning of such a series of entertain- 
ments as had never been imagined, much less 
experienced, by the oldest traveler among us. 
It was a rush, from the moment of arrival, to 
get to our hotels with our luggage, don evening 
dress and be at the hall within an hour, but 
by the help of taxis we were on time. 

It was a magnificent sight to which we were 
introduced. The great hall itself seemed inter- 
minable in length, and all down the distance 
were splendidly furnished tables for six hun- 
dred people. We paused at the door to feast 
our eyes, and they were riveted on six hun- 
dred bottles, — a long, tall, slender bottle for 
each plate, — and we said to ourselves, "How 
delightful, and what charming taste, to give 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 91 

to each guest as a souvenir from this, its 
fountainhead, such a fine bottle of Cologne 
water!" 

We had expected to bathe every day in 
Cologne water while we were in the city, but 
we had not intended to drink it. And evidently 
these bottles were designed for drinking pur- 
poses, as they were all uncorked and beside 
them were delicate, long-stemmed glasses. 
But the odor was so different. The Cologne 
we get in America is of an entirely different 
order of fragrance, and we were not just sure 
as to what we were to do with it. However 
as the dinner progressed we saw our hosts 
drinking freely of the " water " and seeming 
to enjoy it, and we came to the conclusion that 
the Cologne water served at a great dinner 
must be of an entirely different brand from 
that used at the toilet. And so far as the 
"Angels" knew, the brand to be used as a 
beverage has never come into general use in 
the best angelic society on our side of the 
Atlantic. 

A German dinner is a continuous surprise; 
there is nothing like it in America or England. 
Generally the dressing is the same. Evening 
dress appears to follow a common mode, but 
there the resemblance stops. There was a 



92 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

word of greeting from the chairman, and then 
the first course of the dinner was served. 
When it was eaten and the dishes were re- 
moved, the people were called to order and two 
long speeches of welcome were delivered in 
German, then the second course was served, 
and we had two more speeches, then the third, 
and more speeches, and so on until the end, 
which came after three hours, and when the 
dinner was ended the speeches were ended. 
There are some features of this plan which 
commend themselves to me. It insures slow 
eating and good digestion; it also provides 
against an exodus of the guests in case there 
is a dull speaker. And when the dinner is 
through it is done, and we can go home. 

But in this case we were not allowed to 
go home. We thought we had reached the 
climax of hospitality in England, but we have 
to confess that we knew not its possibilities 
until we struck Germany. Remember there 
were over two hundred of us, and we all 
brought our appetites with us. Not only 
were we given this splendid dinner, with a 
bottle of Cologne water, — or something! At 
the conclusion of the feast, we each received 
a little booklet of coupons, by the use of 
which we could get anything we wanted, and 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 



93 



some things we did not want, during our 
entire stay. There were coupons for transpor- 
tation, for entrance to the "Flora," one of the 
most spacious and ^__________^___ 

elaborate concert 
gardens in Rhine- 
lands. I call it a 
concert garden be- 
cause that is not its 
name; there are con- 
certs there of the 
very highest musi- 
cal order, but in the 
vernacular it is about 
the biggest beer gar- 
den on earth. And 
in our little book we 
found a number of 
coupons good for 

bottles of wine, more coupons good for beer, 
still others for mineral water, yet others for 
the long and wonderful trip on the Rhine, 
and another for another elaborate dinner at 
Remagen. 

I thought we had some pretty good 
"spenders" at home. We are mostly glad to 
entertain a few guests when they come from 
a distance and are not going to stay very 




ON THE RHINE. 



94 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

long, but to have a group of two hundred 
landed upon us and give them all pie and 
"Cologne water" at every meal, with several 
glorious concerts thrown in, sets a new mark 
in the grace of hospitality. 

And probably about this time the "gentle 
reader" will begin to have a suspicion as to 
when the "temptation of the Angels" occurred. 
Following the dinner at the Lesegesellschaft 
(I would not use that word if I had to pro- 
nounce it), we were hurried to the cars and on 
them to the "Flora," where we arrived at 
about nine o'clock and found seats together 
with two thousand others at the little tables 
scattered about in the large and lofty pavilion 
and through the beautiful gardens surrounding 
it. There seemed to be music everywhere; 
in one place was a fine band of thirty-three 
performers; in another a splendid orchestra, 
and on the platform in the center of it all 
there were singers and speakers, so, as we say 
in America, there was something doing all the 
time. And while the music and the speaking 
were going on the waiters were circling about 
taking orders and calling for our coupons. 
Now as a matter of history, the "Angels" 
used only the coupons calling for mineral 
water, to the supreme disgust of the waiters, 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 95 

who lifted their hands in horror at the taste 
of those Americans who wanted to drink 
water. They flouted us, they scorned us, they 
laughed at us with ghoulish glee, they abashed 
us, until at last, to appease them, I meekly 
asked for ginger ale, and the waiter nearly 
went mad; but I persisted and wanted lemonade, 
which he denied me with scorn, and he even 
refused me "Mellin's Food. ,, Understand 
that the temptation of this "Angel" was not 
to drink beer, but to kill the waiter. 

And yet we had a most hilarious time, and 
listened to some splendid speeches in English 
and in German, heard good music, and got to 
our hotels at two o'clock in the morning, 
which, from the German point of view, is just 
on the edge of the evening. 

What a day was that day upon the Rhine! 
We were taken by our hosts in the morning 
to Bonn, that we might get a glimpse of the 
great university, and thence to the special 
steamer which carried us and twelve hundred 
of our German friends up the beautiful and 
historic river, past Obercassel, Godesberg, 
Drachenfels, Rolanseck and many other cities 
and castles and ruins to Remagen, where in a 
great hotel on the bank of the river, with vine- 
covered but otherwise wide open porches we 



96 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



sat for three hours through another German 
dinner with speeches between courses and 
bottles of the "Rhine" at our plates. There 
does not seem to be much difference between 
the "Rhine" and "Cologne water" when 
served as a beverage. But here those who care 




THE RHINE AT REMAGEN. 



for it did have a real treat. Up in the moun- 
tains back of Remagen is the famous Apolli- 
naris spring, and this fine water, which at 
home is looked upon as a great luxury, was 
served with prodigality. 

After the dinner we were again on board our 
steamer and moved off with the band playing, 
every one singing and all the inhabitants of the 
town upon the river banks waving and cheering 
us a good-by. Then we continued on up 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 97 

the river nearly to Coblenz, and turned back 
as the sun was setting, to speed down the river 
aided by the swift current, for we were due 
in Cologne at a social reception which was to 
begin at ten o'clock at night, and end, of 
necessity, in time for us to take the morning 
train for Berlin. 

Through all the years of my life my heart 
has yearned for the beauties of the Rhine with 
a longing which would not be satisfied. No 
amount of traveling was an adequate substitute. 
In some way, back in childhood days, I as- 
sociated with that river and its embracing hills 
all of my fairy stories. Some of its myths and 
legends had come to me more or less corrupted 
probably, but I have always been sure that 
there was something mystic about the stream, 
and if I could only look upon it I should see 
some of the giants and robber barons who used 
to sweep through my imagination before my 
imagination became corrupted with truth and 
reason. And now I have seen the Rhine, at 
least a bit of it, and I can remember few days 
in my life that are richer in keen enjoyment 
than that one when we sang our way through 
the ruins and castles which stand all along 
the shores, like frozen echoes of the past. 

And yet the Rhine itself, stripped of its 



98 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

historic robes, is not as fine as our own Hudson, 
and even the Penobscot from Bangor to the 
sea, can show exquisite touches of scenery which 
easily rival those of the more famous river of 
Germany. But the Rhine is more than natural 
scenery. It is a great moving stage upon which 
the activities of the world's largest life have been 
enacted. The very ordinary hill is seen not as 
it is to-day, but as the centuries have colored 
it, often mixing their colors with human blood. 
And that pile of stone, but a resting place for 
birds in their flight, is more than a stone pile, 
for it has housed and homed and protected 
human hearts in the long ago, and is their 
pathetic monument. And the ruin which lifts 
its shattered figure between you and the set- 
ting sun is more than a ruin of man's work; it 
is a symbol of the way of all human strength 
and greatness, which pass with the passing 
centuries to give place to something better. 

All day long we sang, led by the fine orches- 
tra and the singing spirit of the Germans, we 
sang the hours away. And sometimes our 
voices made a mighty chorus which swung up 
through the hills and through the shattered 
courts and corridors of the ruins, and startled 
sleeping echoes into life. And then with the 
day we moved away, but a passing incident 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 99 

soon to be forgotten by the mighty river 
which through the ages and ages has been 
fretted by the fleeting generations of men, and 
yet flows on, strong, calm, unchanging, while 
men and the works of man decay. 

In spite of the bounteous hospitality of our 
hosts, we had a little time in which to see the 
city of Cologne, and especially its cathedral. 
It is a glorious city, filled with wondrous 
churches and buildings of historic interest and 
opportunities for pleasures of every possible 
kind, but after all, as every street seems to lead 
to the cathedral, every interest also centers 
there. And worthily too, for among all the 
cathedrals we saw, to my thinking there is 
none to approach the unity, massiveness and 
perfection of the Cologne Cathedral. It is 
almost inconceivable that a thought so large 
should have existed in any mind away back in 
1248, and entirely inconceivable that that 
thought should have been carried out through 
all the centuries until the towers were completed 
in 1880. When we realize how many minds 
have been at work, and how there is hardly 
another instance in existence in which the 
original design has not been changed and al- 
most always injured by some follower we 
stand in amazement before the unity and har- 



100 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



mony of this massive pile. As I stood in front 
of it and looked up and up, following the lines 




COLOGNE CATHEDRAL. 



of the towers in their graceful focus into the 
very heavens, and felt as well as saw the stu- 
pendous immensity of the thing, I could think 



THE TEMPTATION OF THE ANGELS 101 

of nothing save one of the great towering peaks 
of our own Rocky Mountains, which, as you 
look, seems to float in the air and lean more 
and more over you, luring your spirit into 
companionship. I do not think I have ever 
been so impressed with the work of man. 
There are bigger things, and far more intricate 
products of the mind, but in this cathedral six 
hundred years ago a man thought, and thought 
so well and so fully that hundreds and thou- 
sands of thinkers and workers coming after 
him but thought his thoughts over again and 
translated them into stone, and behold, the 
seed-thought growing for six hundred years 
blossoms into this marvelous thing in which 
the eye, the mind and the spirit all find con- 
tent. Within there are wonders of carving and 
decoration, and in the magnificent proportions 
one's enthusiasm is commanded. None may 
enter here without a feeling of awe and rever- 
ence, but it was when I stood without and 
sensed the greatness of man's achievement 
that I worshiped God. 




CHAPTER IX 

THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 
BEING A BRIEF OF THEIR STAY IN BERLIN 

[EVEN hundred years ago, on op- 
posite sides of the river Spree, in 
the northern part of what is now 
the German Empire, were two 
small towns, one known as Kolln and the other 
as Berlin. Half a century later the two were 
united and formed the beginning of the great 
city which was to follow. In those days the 
humble inhabitants, as they loved and fought 
each other in their crude ways, had no thought 
that the World Congress of Free Christianity 
and Religious Progress was on its way to Berlin 
and would arrive at 6.19 P. M. on August 5, 
1910. In 1650, when the town had grown to 
a city of 20,000 inhabitants and was about to 
become the royal residence, nothing had yet 
been heard of our coming. One hundred years 
later, when Frederick the Great led in making 
his capital a place worthy of the honor, and the 
population had grown to one hundred and 
forty-five thousand, it is doubtful if a thought 

102 



THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 



103 



of the Liberal Religious invasion at the begin- 
ning of the twentieth century had occurred 
to any one. In the year 1850 there were in 
the city of Berlin nearly half a million who 
never saw a shadow of the coming event, and 




IN BERLIN. 



it is a rather humiliating fact that when the 
" Angels " swooped down upon Berlin on the 
fifth of August in this year of grace, so far as 
we could see there were several of the three 
millions of citizens of one of the most wonderful 
cities of the modern world who did not know 



104 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

of our arrival, and several others who did not 
care whether we were there or not. 

We are thus made to see the difference in 
the times. Had two thousand Religious Lib- 
erals caravaned into the town of Berlin six 
hundred years ago, we should all have been 
sliced up into small pieces, had our awful 
heresies burned, and the ashes scattered to the 
four winds, and we should now be but a fading 
incident of history. We should have made a 
great sensation in those days; every man, 
woman and child would have known we were 
there, and probably had a piece of us to keep 
as a souvenir. But I don't care for too much 
excitement. I think I prefer the indifference 
of the three millions of to-day to the personal 
attentions of the twenty thousand in that cruder 
and ruder age. 

The three millions were very busy enjoying 
themselves, and so far as we could see, most of 
them kept right at their job all the time we 
were there. But when, after a hasty toilet and 
dinner at the hotel, we hastened to the Land- 
wehrcasino, where the Congress was to assem- 
ble, we found that some one had taken account 
of our coming and every preparation was made 
for our comfort and the success of the gathering. 
Though only four hundred had been expected, 



THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 105 

the delegates flocking from all parts of the 
world, and particularly from all the cities of 
Germany, soon numbered over two thousand, 
and before the session was two days old the 
people of Berlin did discover that something 
was going on, and something of importance, 
and poured in upon us until the great halls were 
inadequate for the crowds. And for the next 
week such a series of meetings was held as had 
never been known in religious history, and the 
great throbbing, amusement-loving city and 
the greater land of which it is the political 
center were touched and moved by a great new 
thought of a new age. 

It is not my purpose in these gossipy chap- 
ters to try to tell the story of the Congress 
itself, which was the goal of all our journeying, 
for many have already sketched its proceedings, 
and when these words are being read, the Book 
of the Congress will have come from the press 
and all who will may read. 

This writing is largely a matter of personal 
observation and memory, freed from the handi- 
cap of the notebook I did not keep. I did have 
some impressions and have some memories of 
the great Congress, and perhaps it will not be 
out of place to hint at them here even at the 
risk of introducing the egotistical. Such an 



106 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

experience as standing before representatives 
of the whole world to speak one's little piece 
does not come so often in a lifetime as to pass 
without notice. It was my privilege to be on 
the platform at the first great meeting, and to 
bring the disciples of religious freedom the 
greetings of our Land of Liberty. At such a 
time it does not matter so much what one may 
say, providing he has a sense of the dignity 
and significance of the occasion. And I con- 
fess to one of the life-thrills which a man may 
not often know, when I faced in one great 
audience not only the Americans and British 
and representatives of our colonies who speak 
a common language with us, but also French, 
Italians, Scandinavians, Germans, Swiss, East 
Indians, Japanese, Chinese and Russians; not 
only those of a common faith who might have a 
sympathetic interest, but also those of thirty 
different phases of religious thought and life, 
who had come together to find, if it might be, 
the points of agreement on which they could 
unite for a larger service to humanity. 

It was an occasion which must appeal to any 
one who has caught, even in a small measure, 
the spirit of the Universalist Gospel which for 
more than one hundred years we have been 
trying to establish in America. For here were 



THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 107 

the first gleams of the light of its fulfillment in 
its largest definition. Here was the revelation 
of the fact that the great basic principles of 
our faith had not only been planted and culti- 
vated within the range of our own humble 
efforts, but like all the blessings of God's 
revelations of truth, the seeds had been planted 
in many lands, and though growing under 
different names and under different conditions, 
they were bearing like fruit of human freedom, 
religious liberty, and the promise of the ulti- 
mate universal triumph of God and good. 
And it came to me as I stood there in the 
presence of that distinguished assembly, that 
the seemingly little movement of an insignifi- 
cant Church in America is glorified by its 
connection with such a world-movement as 
perhaps has never been known in the history 
of religion ; that we are not working and fighting 
alone for those things we count precious and 
peculiar in our faith, but we have our contri- 
bution to make to a common service, and we 
are to receive the encouragement and impulse 
of a great multitude whom no man may number, 
who are working and fighting in their own place 
and their own way for the same things. 

I followed through those long sessions, lis- 
tening to addresses often in unknown tongues, 



108 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

with a sense of awe and a sense of exhilara- 
tion, and noted that every contribution made 
to the great meeting by a representative of the 
Faith we hold to be universal in hope and 
promise, rose to the dignity of the hour in such 
a way as to make it a real contribution and an 
honor to the occasion, the speaker and the cause 
he stood for. 

But let no one imagine that the "Angels" 
carried their devotion to the point of dissipa- 
tion. Generally they were faithful in attend- 
ing the sessions of the Congress, but betwixt 
and between times there were both duties and 
pleasures which loomed large, to meet which it 
was necessary to adopt the Berlin custom which 
has anticipated the final home of the angels; — 
"there is no night there;" that is, no night 
in the sense of going home and going to bed. 
So far as is known, there is a period of lull ex- 
tending from three a.m. to seven a.m., during 
which it is supposed that people sleep and eat 
their breakfasts, but no American has been dis- 
covered who has been able to learn the facts con- 
cerning that period of semi-darkness (for in that 
high latitude the darkness is only " semi " dur- 
ing those hours when morning is dawning). 

It would be irreligious if not criminal for one 
to be in Berlin and fail to see something of this 



THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 109 

extraordinary civic creation. I use the term 
"civic creation" advisedly, for while most of 
the great cities of the world have grown and in 
their growth been directed more or less by the 
wisdom and foolishness of man, Berlin literally 
has been built, made, created mostly according 
to plans of wise architects and foolish kings. 
And when the foolish kings did not interfere 
too much, the creation has set worthy stand- 
ards, and to-day, in some respects, Berlin is a 
model city. Not so model as many of the 
modern reformers who are continually shaking 
it in our faces would have us believe, but on 
the whole a place where the animal man and 
the intellectual man may be pretty comfortable 
and the spiritual man can find enough to do. 
It is perfectly true that by slipping a very 
small coin into a slot-machine you can get a 
ticket which will allow you to be shot through 
a hole in the ground to your distant destination 
at a more rapid rate and, if you want to ride 
third-class where every car is a " smoker," at 
a less price than in almost any other great city 
of the world. It is true that the control of 
these roads by the city is in the best interests 
of the people who pay the taxes, if not of the 
passengers, but it is not true that there are no 
defects in the mechanism of the thing, for I 



110 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

still mourn the ten pfennigs I slipped into a 
slot-machine which never rendered up its ticket. 
It is true that the streets are so clean you feel 
you must wipe your feet before you leave your 
house; true that repairs very generally are 
made at night and the street that is all torn up 
when you return from the opera — or church — 
at night will show no sign in the morning. It 
is true that the streets are full, literally, of fine 
cabs and taxis which move a continual pro- 
cession, and will respond to your whistle and 
take you anywhere very quickly for a trifling 
sum, so trifling in fact that the average man 
squanders lots of his hard-earned silver when 
he should be benefiting his health by walking. 
It is true that the average citizen of Berlin 
knows how to keep out of a sanitarium by 
finding a place to stop in his work, and a place 
where he with his family and friends can be 
diverted and made to forget the troubles and 
trials of business. 

As the stranger goes about the city and notes 
the number of " gardens " where people sit 
under the shade of real or artificial trees and 
drink beer and music at the same time, he will 
wonder where they all come from, and if he 
goes to one of the larger gardens, such as the 
Zoological, and finds it difficult to make his 



THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 111 

way amid the acres of solid folk, it will seem to 
him that every home in that great city must be 
deserted, and that nothing less than the whole 
volume of the river Spree could supply the 
beer consumed in a single evening. 

The beer-drinking habit of the Germans 
reaches its climax in the cities of Berlin and 
Munich, and it has come to be the common 
belief in America that with the beer there used 
and the way of using, it is innocuous, and I 
am disposed to give it all the credit possible. 
From hearsay and observation only, I learn 
that the beer used contains only a small per 
cent of alcohol and is comparatively pure, and 
the consumption per capita does not approach 
that of other countries, for the reason that the 
drinking is not to quench an unnatural thirst 
but is a sort of social function. A party sits at a 
table and each person has a glass or stein which 
he sips through a long evening while listening 
to music, and it is said there is no intoxication. 
I have heard many a returning traveler say 
that there is no drunkenness in Germany, but 
I know that is not true. It is true that drunk- 
enness is not allowed to be exhibited on the 
streets as with us, but it is only necessary for 
one to sit up late enough at night to discover 
it on the street in spite of the statutes. 



112 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

But there are a great many foolish as well as 
criminal untruths about Europe which have 
found their way into the common speech of 
Americans, and among them all there is none 
more foolish and more criminal than the one 
fostered by reputable physicians on our side of 
the water, who tell their patients as they start 
for Europe to " beware of drinking water over 
there, for it is dangerous, and to fall in with the 
customs of the country and take wine or beer." 
Now, this statement of our otherwise worthy 
physicians is the cheapest kind of a bid for the 
cheapest kind of reputation, and has not the 
slightest foundation in truth. There is not a 
city in Europe in which the water supply will 
not average up to the best in any of our own 
cities, and there is not a particle more danger 
in drinking the water even in the cities of Italy 
than in drinking it in our American cities. 
The people over there drink beer and wine 
because it is the habit of generations, and 
tourists often find difficulty in getting water, 
especially ice water, because the waiters at 
hotels and restaurants get a commission on the 
liquors they sell. An instance in point: At the 
closing banquet in Berlin, which was one of the 
most magnificent I ever attended, at two of 
the tables were seated only Americans and 



THE ANGELS ON A SPREE 113 

English, and none of them took wine, and at 
the close the waiter appealed to me, because I 
happened to preside at that table, almost with 
tears in his eyes, for a larger gratuity because 
none of our party drank. 

And we may say all we can say in extenuation 
of the drinking habit of the foreigner, it is in 
fact so pronounced a curse upon the people of 
the land that to-day the better element of 
Germany is rising in protest against it; and 
though we and all others must glory in the 
material achievements of the city of Berlin, 
which we see under the most favorable con- 
ditions, behind the scenes there are slums of 
wickedness and suffering no less awful than 
those in other great cities of the world, and 
they are there very largely because of the 
blight of drink upon human nature. 

But I did not intend to write a temperance 
lecture; I only stumbled upon it, as unfortu- 
nately we must in almost any pleasure ex- 
cursion, in almost any place or time, stumble 
upon this chief cause of most of the shadows 
which fall athwart this otherwise fair earth. 

Berlin the beautiful, Berlin the wonderful 
city, deserves all that can be said of it, and now 
that I have cleared my mind of the shadow, 
I can talk in the sunshine. 



CHAPTER X 

THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 
FROM THE ANGELS' POINT OF VIEW 



H 



HE "Angels " were a little dubious 
regarding the attitude of the Kaiser 
towards his guests. We did not 
expect him to meet us at the station 
with his private carriage and take us "up to 
the house " where we were to make ourselves 
at home, though it occurred to us when we 
discovered that one of his palaces had seven 
hundred rooms that if he had been so disposed 
he could have accommodated the two hundred 
American "Angels " and not put himself out. 
But it seemed that he was so thoughtless as to 
be away from home at the very time when he 
had company coming. In a way this was, 
whether intended or not, a real favor on his 
part, for his notion of hospitality requires that 
no visitor be admitted to his home palace in 
Potsdam when he is in residence, and being 
away, the " Angels " had the privilege of 
seeing the grounds and a few of the rooms of 
the New Palace. " New," in Europe, always 

114 



THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 



115 



has a meaning differing from ours. A new 
building in America would mean one in pro- 
cess of construction, whereas this " New 
Palace " was built by Frederick the Great in 
1763. And yet the bloom has not worn off. 
We had no means of knowing how often the 




THE DOM. 



Empress " cleans house/' but with several 
palaces in Potsdam, which place is less than 
an hour out from the city of Berlin, and some 
pretty extensive establishments in the city, it 
seemed that housekeeping in the royal family 
in Germany might be almost as complicated as 
in a six-room flat in America with only one 
German maid to do the work. But we dis- 



116 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

covered evidence of his Majesty's enterprise 
and providence. 

The Konigliches Schloss, — it is funny how 
I accidentally fall into the use of these German 
words every time I can think of them, and find 
out how to spell them ! — I mean the Royal 
Palace in Berlin, is big enough to do for a 
World's Exposition, and there seem to be 
several acres of floors in the innumerable rooms. 
These floors are of hardwoods and so exquisitely 
polished as to excite the wonder and admiration 
of all until the process is revealed by which 
they are kept in their mirror-like condition. 
It would seem that the greatest ruler of the 
world — excepting of course our own Theo- 
dore I — could pay for the proper care of his 
own Schloss, and yet when these freeborn, 
liberty-loving and independent American ' 'An- 
gels " came to look upon this magnificence, 
they were all set at work polishing floors for 
the Kaiser. It is with a feeling of shame that 
this record is made, and yet it is my business 
as a reporter of this excursion to tell the truth, 
and the truth is that every "Angel " who 
ventured into that palace had to tuck up his 
or her wings and put on over the good American 
shoes we wore, great ungainly carpet slippers 
in which we were to sort of glide about those 



THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 117 

vast galleries, — we must of necessity slide or 
glide, because the old things were several sizes 
too large for the feet of even the Chicago 
representatives, — and in this way the beautiful 
polish was secured and preserved. We need 
nevermore talk of Yankee enterprise; the 
Kaiser has us beaten to a frazzle. And my 
humiliation reached the climax when I wit- 
nessed grave and reverend ministers of the 
Gospel, spectacled schoolmarms from New 
England, literary lights from Indiana, Quaker 
men and maidens from the city of Brotherly 
Love, esoteric philosophers from Beacon Hill, 
sages from Concord, Muses from Cincinnati, 
and cowboys from the wild west, skating here 
and there over the Kaiser's glossy floors and 
giving them the final touch of real American 
polish. 

For those of the "Angels " who arrived at 
the palace at the auspicious moment when the 
guard changed there was adequate compensa- 
tion for the labor of polishing floors, in being 
allowed to witness the mightiest army in the 
world make itself ridiculous in the " Goose 
Walk." Of course the whole of the army was 
not there excepting as it is embodied in the 
breast of each proud soldier, but it was suffi- 
cient to fill our souls with joy to see the repre- 



118 A SUMMER FLIGHT ■ 

sentatives of the King's Guard take these 
historic steps. Why they take them I do not 
know, excepting that in Europe you can de- 
pend on anything that has been done for several 
hundred generations being continued in all 
seriousness by a good many generations to 
come. The Goose Walk is an instance. In 
the long ago the soldiers of the Guard, either 
in order to be distinctive, or because they 
thought it pretty, or some ancient ruler wanted 
to see them do it, at the time of changing the 
Guard, used a step in which the foot is lifted 
very high, till the knee comes up nearly to a 
level with the breast, and then is snapped down 
and the other leg is put through the same antic. 
Some time in the history of this curious cus- 
tom some one saw in it the resemblance to the 
way in which a goose walks, and christened it 
with a name which has stuck. I have to confess 
to my readers that this is a wholly original 
description and explanation of this extraordi- 
nary custom; I could find none in the German lit- 
erature I read, and so advance this hypothesis, 
which is good enough to be true whether it is or 
not, and is better than nothing. 

Those who have the privilege of visiting this 
wonderful island, formed in the river Spree, 
right in the heart of Berlin, are blessed with 



THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 119 

the treat of a lifetime. It is difficult to. find 
another place in which so much of historic and 
artistic interest is grouped within a small area. 
The Royal Palace fronts on the Lustgarten, a 
small but beautiful park adorned with a great 
fountain and statuary. At the rear of the 
park is the Dom, which is the German designa- 
tion of the Cathedral, a big building with a 
most impressive dome, but otherwise hardly 
to be classed with the great cathedrals of 
Europe. Opposite the Palace is the Old Mu- 
seum, which is connected over Museumstrasse 
with the larger New Museum, and that in turn, 
through a court, with the National Gallery, 
leaving the end of the island to the magnificent 
Kaiser Frederick Museum. 

Aside from the architectural interest of this 
group of great buildings, there is enough within 
them and accessible to the public to employ 
the time of the antiquarian or lover of art for 
months. And yet it is possible to get a very 
fair impression even in a day's visit. This 
matter of seeing the galleries, pictures and stat- 
uary of Europe is a curious one. We every- 
day sort of people, without technical training, 
are handicapped a good deal in our observing 
and observations. There has come through 
our schooling and general reading a haze of in- 



120 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

formation in which there are sharply defined 
certain names of artists and certain subjects 
of art. We have read the names, and descrip- 
tions of the works, and of some have seen more 
or less worthy reproductions. But when we 
are suddenly thrust among a great multitude 
of these masterpieces of the ages, we are only 
sure of a sense of confusion and bewilderment. 
If we could come upon a single object and have 
the time to take it in and make it our own there 
would be some hope of carrying away some- 
thing besides a misty impression. To walk 
through the Old Museum is really to lose one's 
self in a forest of antiquities. Out of every 
place have come fragments, very largely, of the 
world's sculpture, and there they are massed, 
each with a label which ceases to have mean- 
ing as others press upon it. In the National 
Gallery there is a mixture of ancient and modern 
painting, and nearly every school is represented, 
while in the Kaiser Frederick Museum there 
is the most complete collection of the works 
bearing the deathless names of the Masters, 
particularly in ecclesiastical art. 

A party of average people go through these 
miles of galleries, and we all come out with our 
eyes glutted, our hearts throbbing and our 
minds dazed. Those who have a memory for 



THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 121 

detail, or rather a verbal memory, have filled 
up on the names which are " starred " in 
Baedeker as being worthy of particular notice, 
and can talk fluently as they do talk freely the 
conventional art slang, and it appears that they 
have brought away about everything the 
tourist can attain, but they will not bear close 
questioning. The great picture is picked out 
from the catalogue and we stand before it, and 
we should and would be mute, but the disease 
of talk has infected us and talk we must, though 
we have nothing to say, and so, very generally, 
we stand solemnly before the picture with an 
intense look in our faces, then we clasp our 
hands, heave a great sigh and say, "Such 
coloring! " And after all, that does pretty 
well, because it is what all the others are going 
to say! 

As a matter of education the massing in 
our minds of these vast collections will be of 
inestimable value, as through all the coming 
years, through experience and reading, we are 
enabled to identify and classify that which we 
brought away; but for enjoyment while there, 
I confess to a keen if crude delight when in an 
alcove of the National Gallery, I ran across a 
little picture of one of those lazy little streams 
which creep up right under the grass-grown 



122 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

banks, and just lie there in the soft light of 
an afternoon sun, reflecting the clouds over- 
head, and smiling a little when the branches 
of the old tree which overhangs, reach down 
and tickle their faces. There was no motion of 
the water, but I sat there opposite it for a long 
time, and it bore me away from myself and 
from the wilderness of pictures, from the associa- 
tions of royalty, from the great city and its 
great religious congress, from the continent of 
Europe and from the world and its people to 
God and the things of God. It was not an 
" Old Master," but it was a master of my soul. 

When you pass from the Thiergarten through 
Brandenburg Gate and enter Unter den Linden, 
you are in the center of the world, to the Ger- 
man, and you are on one of the most famous 
streets of the world. There is hardly any one 
word adequate to its description, but even dem- 
ocratic Americans think of it instantly as a 
" royal thoroughfare." The great gate at the 
entrance, erected more than a century ago, must 
have been designed by one who had the vision 
of a prophet, who saw through the magnificent 
arches the glory to which it made entrance, and 
which was to come in the unfolding years. 

There should be inscribed on this gate, " Let 
him who enters here leave his pocketbook 



THE ANGELS AND THE KAISER 123 

behind"; for when he reaches the corner of 
Friedrichstrasse the lure of the Berlin mer- 
chant will be upon him, and he must remember 
that the new custom laws of our great and 
glorious America will not let him bring his 
spoil home unless he pay for it over again. 
And yet it is worth the double price, just for 
the fun of shopping when neither buyer nor 
seller can understand, that is, worth it, — if 
you have the price. And prices are so reason- 
able when compared on the level with our own, 
and if one knows how to buy and what to buy, 
it will be found that he is making money even 
when paying full duty. 

Fain would I linger. But I must not. Were 
I to try to tell but the half of the fascinations 
of Berlin, I should never finish this record, 
for though our itinerary compelled our de- 
parture on a certain date, so full is my mind 
of memories that it seems I can never grow 
poor in material. I have said nothing of the 
parks, which are fairer than any I have known 
elsewhere, because they have retained so much 
of the natural .; and as you walk or drive beneath 
the grand old trees you feel that they have 
grown there to their stately proportions and 
were not bought and paid for and removed 
from their native soil. Perhaps they all were, 



124 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

but it has been so well done that I do not want 
any one to tell me so and spoil my satisfaction. 

I have told nothing of the churches, and 
yet we were there on a religious mission. I 
do wish I could have taken you with us to the 
old thirteenth-century " Marien-Kirche," that 
you might have a sense of the reality of the 
sanctity with which age really does invest a 
building. We attended a concert of rare merit 
there on Saturday afternoon. The audience was 
immense, but it was all like a religious congre- 
gation, and we came forth from the great 
shadowy interior with rapt faces and exultant 
spirits. I wish you might have gone with us 
on Sunday to " Jerusalemer-Kirche," and caught 
some of the inspiration of the great sermons 
preached by some of the real leaders of reli- 
gious thought and life of the world, who had 
come together with the disciples of religious 
freedom. But you must read their messages 
in the Book of the Congress. 

I wish I could take you to Wagner opera, 
that you might see and hear " The Rhinegold " 
as it can be staged and sung only in Germany; 
that you might know something of the place 
music holds in the life of this people. But my 
space is all gone; I cannot even end this chapter, 
I must simply stop. 




CHAPTER XI 

FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 

FOLLOWING THE REFORMER THROUGH WITTEN- 
BERG AND WEIMAR TO EISENACH 

|ORE and more am I impressed with 
the rare skill exhibited in the man- 
agement of this great tour of the 
Americans to the World Congress 
and through Europe. The sense of independ- 
ence is so aggressive in our countrymen that 
we prefer, usually, to be troubled about many 
things rather than surrender for even a brief 
period our pride of self. We want to go where 
we want to go, and we want to do what we 
want to do, and we resent the interference of 
any other mind, however well equipped it may 
be. As a result we often run our heads against 
a stone wall, or land in some slough of despond, 
all of which could be easily avoided by the 
exercise of a little of that heavenly virtue of 
common sense and the heavenly grace of 
humility. 

From the two hundred people of our party 
we heard few complaints, and certainly it is 

125 



126 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the verdict of the great majority that we saw 
more in less time and with less friction, in the 
period allotted us, than it would have been 
possible under any other conditions, particu- 
larly through any scheme of independent 
traveling. The independent tourist unless he 
carry a great number of letters of personal in- 
troduction, which he will be loath to use, has no 
such chance of touching the actual life of people 
of the countries visited as came to us without 
effort, and, in addition, it was our privilege to 
meet personally that group of religious and 
life leaders which makes Europe a dominant 
power in the world's progress. 

We realized our opportunity especially when 
we came to leave Berlin after the close of the 
Congress. Ordinarily we could expect little after 
the great purpose of the journey was accom- 
plished; we must have been satisfied with the 
glory of the great gathering and the sounding 
of its note of religious freedom, and counted 
that the climax; but to us there came a post- 
script which, like that at the end of the woman's 
letter, was even better than the letter itself. 

One prominent incident of the meetings in 
Berlin occurred one Saturday afternoon when 
we all gathered at the foot of the great statue 
of Martin Luther, in Neuer Market Square, and 



FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 127 

with fitting ceremony placed a large wreath at 
the feet of the great reformer. This was most 
fitting, for however much the Luther of olden 
times differed from the modern Liberal, yet in 
his day he represented exactly the same posi- 
tion as did those who, in this later age, paid 
worthy tribute to his memory. Luther was 
as liberal for his day as the spirit of the " Welt- 
kongress fur Freies Christen turn " which as- 
sembled in Berlin in 1910 was for the present. 

Our program following the Congress might 
well be termed "A Luther Pilgrimage," for 
the next two days were spent almost wholly in 
the land hallowed by his presence and labors. 
The morning after the splendid banquet with 
which the formal session closed, two special 
trains of cars, carrying besides the Ameri- 
can and English delegates, representatives 
from France, Italy, Switzerland and many 
other countries, also many of our German 
hosts, took us first to Wittenberg, where we 
had the privilege of visiting the home and 
church of Luther and placing wreaths upon 
the graves of Luther and Melanchthon, and 
holding a brief service in the place where the 
reformer had preached, and on the door of 
which he nailed his famous theses which revo- 
lutionized the religious world. 



128 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



This church stands at the top of a long street, 
now bordered with little homes and shops, and 
through which runs — or creeps — an anti- 
quated horse car, in which a few of us rode, 
while the others walked, slowly, so as not to 
distance the car, past the quaint old square 
with its picturesque town hall to this shrine 
of religious progress, where we were to feel our 





WITTENBERG. 



hearts thrill with a new sense of the personality 
of this great man, who dared to think, and set 
the world a-thinking. 

Wittenberg is very closely associated with 
the career of Luther, for it was there that as a 
monk true to the Romish Church he taught in 
the University, and there as the revolter against 
the abuses of the Church he applied the fire to 
a condition extending throughout the empire 
which was ready, like tinder, to respond. We 



FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 129 

have a sort of notion that Luther was the whole 
of the Reformation, but as a matter of fact the 
whole religious world was but waiting for a 
leader, and as all through history, the occasion 
met the man, the man was ready, and the man 
was lifted by the occasion to immortality. 

Probably never was there greater surprise 
than that felt by the friends of Luther. Had 
any one foretold about the time that Columbus 
was discovering America that the small boy 
in the Eisleben school who was flogged fifteen 
times in one forenoon was to reshape the 
religious thinking of Europe, he would have 
been laughed to scorn. No man is able to see 
the man in the boy, and I should think, some- 
times, that even God would be puzzled. 

We were diverted from the footsteps of 
Luther that we might have a day and a night 
in the famous city of Weimar, the home of 
Goethe and Schiller and where they lie buried 
side by side, in the mausoleum, together with 
the rulers of Saxe- Weimar, where the un- 
titled are the more royal. 

Weimar afforded the "Angels " some per- 
sonal experiences which were met with nowhere 
else. Of course it was our desire to get as close 
to the people as we could, and when several 
hundred of us descended at once upon the 



130 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

hotels of a small city there was no getting away 
from the fact that we were of necessity as close 
as was desirable. Every hotel was utilized 
and some of us found ourselves in quarters 
which became endurable only when we resorted 
to the thought that they were " quaint." 
What a help that word is whenever we get into 
places where there are none of the conveniences 
of life, and things generally are about as ugly 
as they make them; we call them " quaint," 
and begin to enjoy them. It shows just how 
much the realities of life amount to; it is the 
quality which enables us to go away from our 
comfortable homes in the summer and put up 
with small rooms, hard beds and bad food and 
be happy because it is all so " quaint." 

The great sprawling German hotel where 
my particular covey of "Angels" roosted was 
quaint enough to satisfy the most exacting. 
The doors through which we entered the court 
were large enough for castle walls, or in the 
Yankee vernacular, to admit a load of hay. 
From this gigantic and imposing entrance we 
came into an " office " almost large enough to 
make an old-fashioned " wardrobe," and from 
this we wound up a circular stair and through 
narrow halls twisting and turning through every 
possible form of angularity, leading at last to 



FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 131 

rooms in which the ' 'Angels " were mixed up 
almost as badly as on the Channel steamer. 
When finally we were separated and reas- 
sembled each in his own place, I found myself 
in a room bounded on the north by the pig-pen 
and the chicken coop, on the east by the parlor, 
on the south by interminable stairways leading 
up and down, and on the west by the laundry, 
through which latter department I had to 
reach my door, the lock of which was so con- 
structed that it could not be opened until one 
of the Venuses of the Tubs had descended to 
the lower regions and secured a bar of iron 
about a foot long, which in some mysterious 
way solved the combination and admitted me. 
But it was " quaint." 

I have not said anything about the German 
beds yet. I really haven't had room. Some 
day I shall write a book about them. They are 
" quaint " too. But I can hardly conceive of 
anything more astounding to the innocent 
American than to enter his sleeping room in a 
German home or inn, in the middle of August, 
and look upon his bed before it has been 
touched by the rude hand of the iconoclast. 
If there is anything I despise more than another, 
it is to sleep on a feather bed, in the summer 
time particularly, or to swathe my fair form 



132 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

with oppressive bedclothes; in short I prefer 
to sleep in the altogether, as it were. It is easy, 
then, to imagine my feelings when, entering my 
room, I beheld a bed on which there was a 
feather bed and on top of that another feather 
bed, the latter with a little lace petticoat all 
around the edges, the whole thing rising before 
my horrified sight like an ancient pyramid some 
several cubits wide, several more cubits long, 
and at least forty cubits high. One naturally 
looks about at first to find the stepladder by 
which he is to reach the apex of his night's rest, 
and then he begins to wonder how he is ever 
to stay on the thing when he gets there. That 
man in the circus who balances with perfect 
ease and grace upon the top of a rolling globe 
might find repose at that dizzy height, but no 
hard-working minister would ever try it unless 
he was well insured. 

Had I not been initiated into the mystery of 
these beds before, I must have sat up all night, 
but as it was I knew exactly what to do, and 
that was to creep in under that top feather 
bed and go to sleep. What I did do was to 
pull the whole pyramid to pieces, scattering 
the remains about the room, and go to sleep 
on the slats. 

We had the pleasure of meeting in this hotel, 



FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 133 

also at close quarters, that other German mon- 
strosity, the porcelain stove. Fortunately it 
was not in action. But we examined it with 
wonder and amaze. It was built in sections, 
one resting upon another until it reached much 
higher than our heads, and I came to the con- 
clusion that each section represented a genera- 
tion of the family in which it had grown from 
early historic times. I don't know that this 
is so, but I want to get some original notions 
into these chapters, and I do not see why the 
sections of a porcelain stove should not repre- 
sent different generations of the family, just 
as the rings on the stump of a tree mark the 
years of its growth. Though there is one 
trouble with the theory in its practical applica- 
tion, as there is in most theories brought to 
the practical test, there is something a little 
weird, not to say repulsive, in the thought of 
building a fire in your ancestors for the pur- 
pose of keeping your grandchildren warm. 

But we were not obliged to spend very much 
time in our hotel, and so it really did not matter 
much just how " quaint " it was. We dis- 
covered that there was nothing "quaint" about 
the food; that was all right, and a notable and 
historic fact was that we had a pitcher of ice 
water on the table at every meal, and we knew 



134 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

from the gestures of the waiters when they 
gathered in the corner of the room that they 
were saying to each other in awe-stricken 
voices, " Those Americans are really drinking 
that water! " 

We were in the city of Goethe, and I noticed 
that as different parties left the hotel, the lady 
"Angels " seemed bent on finding Faust, the 
gentlemen "Angels " sought Marguerite, and 
the ministers with one aecord went in pursuit 
of Mephistopheles. And I have noticed, too, 
that we pretty generally find what we are 
looking for. 

Weimar is one of the most charming places 
in Germany; it is the place par excellence for 
one to go to live, if he would learn the German 
language in all its purity. Over the whole 
community the influence of the educational 
atmosphere, and particularly of those masters 
of German literature whose home was there, 
reigns. The inhabitants prize their possessions, 
among which they count as chief the memorials 
of Goethe and Schiller. And these are many. 
The beautiful monument in commemoration 
of these two, between whom there was no spirit 
of envy, exhibits in the figure of Goethe pre- 
senting the laurel wreath to Schiller, and 
Schiller declining it, an exquisite relationship. 



FOLLOWING THE STEPS OF LUTHER 135 

Here the houses of these two authors have 
become state property and are preserved as 
museums of inexhaustible interest. Here we 
can see the humble little trundle-beds in which 
they slept, and as we stand before the Goethe 
Gartenhause where he used to write, we are 
astonished at its simplicity, and begin to 
realize how little connection there is between 
real greatness and circumstances or conditions. 
Here the " Angels " were given the honor of 
a reception by the town authorities, and Pro- 
fessor Euken of the University of Jena, Pastor 
Jaegar of Karlsruhe, and Mr. Bornhauses of 
Marburg, made addresses, which caught the 
spirit of religious fellowship, born of the great 
Congress, making of one blood all nations. 





CHAPTER XII 

ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 

FINDING REFUGE WITH HIM IN THE OLD CASTLE 
OF THE WARTBURG 

HE "Angels" had need of their wings 
when they came to scale the heights 
of the Wartburg, going up from 
Eisenach. It was a good five miles 
by the long and winding road, and most of us 
drove, but some walked, and one distinguished 
"Angel " rode a donkey, about one-third his 
own length in height, necessitating his taking 
several tucks in his legs to prevent their trailing 
behind and tripping others. 

The carriage took us to within about a 
quarter of a mile of the top, and then we had to 
pick our way up over the roughest kind of 
stone-paved pathway through the wall to the 
castle, which covers the whole summit. 

And that last quarter of a mile brought before 
us another of those unsolved problems of human 
progress: How did the builders of nearly one 
thousand years ago, without any of the knowl- 
edge and facilities of which this present age 

136 



138 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

boasts itself, manage the erection of a great 
castle on the extreme top of what is an almost 
inaccessible height, and so build, under those 
impossible conditions, that which has outlived 
the centuries, and that which puts to shame 
the building achievements of modern life? 
What is "progress"? We begin at the fif- 
teenth story of a steel skeleton and build 
downward to the earth a modern office build- 
ing which in twenty years at most will be out 
of date and must come down to make a place 
for a twenty-four-story mushroom under which 
a myriad of human toads may squat and catch 
flies. 

Mostly we settle this problem by saying that 
modern life has no occasion to build in such 
inaccessible places; modern life has something 
better to do than to waste its good money in 
walls and towers, and courts and drawbridges. 
And yet we all strain our modern resources to 
get enough of the good money to take us to 
Europe, that we may just look upon the ruins 
of the creations of those whom we pity because 
they lived under such great limitations. 

It is natural of course for the "Angels" to 
want to get as near heaven as possible, so not 
content with reaching the top of the mountain, 
they mostly paid ten pfennigs to the "St. 



ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 139 

Peter " at the gate, and climbed the winding 
stairway up to the top of the old tower. It 
may be theologically absurd, but it is dismally 
true, that there is a " St. Peter " at the gate 
of every heaven of our desire, and he holds us 
up with some condition or demand which we 
must meet; and our experience in Europe has 
convinced us that when we get to the real 
heavenly gate over on the other side, and stand 
trembling, even if hopeful, before the glories 
of the celestial world, and make our humble 
petition to the real St. Peter, not only will he 
hold us to a strict theological examination, but 
he will also insist upon our buying the latest 
colored set of post cards showing all the public 
buildings of the Holy City, and, perhaps, 
views of a pageant representing the revolt of 
Satan and his angels. 

If the view from the battlements of heaven 
is any finer than the view from the top of the 
tower of the Wartburg, then we shall be recon- 
ciled to the transition from this very satis- 
factory world. Below was spread the wide 
sweep of the Thuringian forests, and in the 
heart of the valley lay the fair city of Eisenach, 
rich in romance and history and associated 
with so much of the life story of Martin Luther. 

Within the castle itself, still more intense 



140 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



were the memories and suggestion of Luther, 
for here it was that he was brought by his 
friends when he had not only been excommuni- 
cated by the Church but had also been outlawed 
by the State and his very life was in danger. 
Here it was he lived in the disguise of a soldier, 
changing his monk's dress for the armor of the 




THE WARTBURG. 



warrior, and going forth only in that habit. 
Here we found his room, restored in some 
measure, in which he studied and where he 
made his famous translation of the Bible into 
the vernacular. And it was in this room that 
in a moment of religious enthusiasm he flung 
his inkstand at the devil, and made a great 
splash on the wall, which tourists have several 
times scratched and cut out and carried away 



ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHEK 141 

as mementos, and each time the wall and the 
ink splash have been restored, not by miracu- 
lous hands, as they would have been under 
Roman Catholic auspices, but by the skill and 
enterprise which know the commercial value 
of a good thing. 

Romance as well as history makes its home 
in the Wartburg, and it is a pretty story which 
is told of St. Elizabeth who, as the princess, used 
to distribute bread to the poor, who came up 
to the very gate through which we entered; 
this she did without the knowledge or sanction 
of her husband, who felt that he was being 
made poor by some unknown drain upon his 
resources, and meeting her one day at the gate, 
when she was holding her skirts so as to conceal 
her bounty, being suspicious, he asked her what 
she had, and she answered, " Roses/' and when 
he demanded to see them, a miracle was per- 
formed and the bread was changed to roses, 
and when the selfish old husband had moved 
away another miracle changed the roses back 
to bread, and the poor were fed. 

A good deal of romance has clung to the 
Luther story too, and it is best for one not to 
hamper his imagination if he would get the full 
measure of inspiration which the place can give. 
The poet is often a more faithful historian than 



142 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the historian himself, for the latter sees but the 
bare facts, the body of the soul of truth which 
the poet sees and reveals. Of course Luther's 
room in the Wartburg is not exactly as it was 
when he was there, but there is enough of him, 
that is, the things which he has hallowed by his 
touch, to leaven all the other memorials which 
have been gathered; there are his chair and desk 
and old porcelain stove and the place on the 
wall where the ink spot used to be, and there is 
the outlook from his window, just the same as 
when he was looking out over the forests to the 
great world, which, perhaps, all unconsciously 
to himself, he was to redeem from the shadow 
of mental and spiritual slavery. 

Luther becomes very real as we stand in the 
places which were his familiars. He comes up 
out of that misty and mystic land our early 
study in history creates and peoples largely 
with ideal characters, a great, strong, manly 
man, a mighty, virile, fighting force, who could 
do things. We never meant to keep him a 
delicate and spiritually minded child, but some 
way the picture of the boy singing in the streets 
of Eisenach, with voice so sweet as to win the 
attention and affection of a woman who made 
him her charge and made his way to education 
easier, got fixed upon the walls of our imagina- 



ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 143 

tion and has hung there through the years, in 
spite of his heroic achievements; but here we 
came upon a new Luther, a great burly, master- 
ful man. A spiritual enthusiast might have 
sought martyrdom by nailing his theses to the 
door of a church as an announcement of his 
convictions and his loyalty to the truth, but 
here at the Wartburg, in his life as a soldier, 
even though it was but for a disguise, he came 
close to the great throbbing heart of man, he 
caught the human, the democratic note, and 
tuned his nature to a new and larger service. 
As he caught the authority and dominance of 
spiritual truth away from that mightiest cor- 
poration of the ages, the Romish Church, and 
enthroned it in the mind and heart of man, he 
became even more than the prophet of the new 
day, he became its creator. 

So nothing more fitting could have been con- 
ceived as a closing for the great Religious Con- 
gress for Free Christianity than to hold the final 
session in the court of the Wartburg, beneath 
the window from which Martin Luther had so 
often looked out to gather inspiration from the 
world beautiful spread below; for it seemed that 
his spirit must have stood there to pronounce 
the benediction upon this group of modern 
apostles of religious liberty and human progress. 



144 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

There were five or six hundred of us, repre- 
senting any number of nationalities and races 
and languages; it was a gathering so unique as 
to be historic. It was prophetic of the soli- 
darity of the human race. It was a new revela- 
tion to man of the revelation of God. Just as 
He has been speaking to His children through 
all the ages, in different places and in different 
ways, just as they were able to hear and receive, 
behold, in this latter and better age, the product 
of all that has before been, He speaks again, and 
in far-off India His voice is heard ; China, Japan 
and the isles of the sea hear His call, modern 
England, France, Germany and young America 
catch the new message, and under different 
names, by different methods and along differ- 
ent paths, God's children the world over are 
feeling their way back to Him. And it ap- 
peared as we gathered in the court of the 
Wartburg — a type of the whole world — that 
we represented a great circle of life, wide as 
humanity itself, all facing towards a common 
center, so that wherever we started from, each 
step forward brought us all nearer to each 
other and nearer to God. 

I wonder if there is not here a hint of the true 
significance of this World Congress of Free 
Christianity. Men are asking, What did the 



ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 145 

Congress do? In a way it did not do anything 
that can be tabulated, save to utter and record 
some speeches, great and small, but it was a 
rallying of the world forces of Liberal Religion. 
I wish we had some other term than that. 
" Religious Liberalism " has come to be as- 
sociated with negations or destructive criticism 
of everything connected with religion and 
worship, and particularly of that which is 
elemental in Christian theology, whereas the 
religious liberalism represented in the World 
Congress was marked by a positiveness which 
was quite remarkable, a conservation of the 
truth revealed or established, and an attitude 
of openmindedness which appealed to members 
of orthodox churches not less than to the 
so-called " liberal/ ' Those in the conservative 
ranks who are growing, who refuse, as did 
Luther, to be bound by existing dogmas, and 
especially those who would make religion a 
this-world force for righteousness, saw the 
opportunity for a fellowship of world-wide 
reach, without the sacrifice of any of their per- 
sonal convictions. The Universalist Church, 
as an example of theological moderation, a 
small church organically, and for years ham- 
pered by its smallness, here discovered that 
it was a part of a fellowship reaching to the 



146 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

corners of the earth, and its life and work are 
not to be estimated by the reports in a year- 
book; it is not an independent something set 
apart by itself, to grow or die in solitary isola- 
tion; it is a part of a great world-movement for 
religious freedom and for accomplishing the 
universal salvation which it has so proudly and 
persistently foretold. And so the thought that 
came to me in the closing session of this largest 
and best religious World Congress was, that no 
greater step had ever been taken or could be 
taken by any Church than to line up with these 
world-forces of religious liberty and human 
progress. 

Who can tell the story of that last and 
greatest meeting? It was a picture never to 
be forgotten, — the great multitude filling the 
court of the castle, from which rose a babble 
of voices in many languages, until from a group 
of forty choral singers there swept over us the 
music of that grand hymn of Luther's, " Em' 
f este Burg ist unser Gott . ' ' There are occasions 
which thrill one by their rare significance; some 
such have come into my life, but never one 
which so caught my imagination and unfolded 
before me a brighter vision. And then came 
the closing messages from the representatives 
of each of the greater nations, following the 



ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 



147 



story of the Wartburg as the cradle of religious 
freedom, told by Professor Schmiedel of Eisen- 
ach. From the opening words of the presi- 
dent, Karl Schrader, until the last hymn was 




THE ROAD TO THE WARTBURG. 



sung, the delegates listened spellbound. Each 
one felt the greatness of the hour, and when 
the president adjourned the Congress to meet 
in Paris in three years, in each heart there was 
born the determination to be present. 



148 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

It was my rare privilege to walk down from 
the castle to where our carriage awaited us in 
company with the president of the Congress, 
Mr. Karl Schrader of Berlin. For nearly ten 
days he had presided over one of the most 
remarkable gatherings in the history of religion, 
and he had just closed it with his benediction, 
and he was profoundly impressed with the 
whole occasion. Mr. Schrader himself is a man 
of note, a business man of standing in the city, 
a student of both taste and training, a man 
of devout religious feeling, a man of mature 
years, keen thought and wise speech, and a man 
practically and actively interested in present- 
day affairs, legislative, social and philan- 
thropic. I had before had occasion to feel his 
cordiality of speech and manner, but I was 
impressed, as we walked down the rough path 
together, with the deep impression the Congress 
and especially this last heart-moving session 
had made upon this man of affairs. "All this 
means more than we can see," he said, and 
" it is a success, larger than we know." 

School was out and vacation had begun when 
we reached the bottom of the mountain. It had 
been a joy all along the way, but there was a 
sense of relief that henceforth we were neither 
to make nor hear speeches, but just to see, and 



ON THE HEIGHTS WITH LUTHER 149 

to see the wonderful panorama of beautiful 
Europe unrolled before us. The city of Eisen- 
ach caught the spirit of the hour, and when we 
drove back into the streets in the twilight, we 
found that we were to be treated to an illumina- 
tion, through which there came a feast of music. 
A beautiful lake in the edge of the city was 
turned into fairyland by electric lights, and 
across its waters came the songs of fellowship 
and brotherhood and good cheer. And who 
shall say that with our coming and our going 
in our small way we had not brought the 
nations of the earth a little nearer together and 
caught them in the embrace of a new human 
brotherhood? 





CHAPTER XIII 

AT OBERAMMERGAU 

THE ANGELS OBSERVE THE NATIVES AND 
INDULGE IN A FEW THOUGHTS 

r T was a long flight from the hills of 
Eisenach down through the valleys 
of southern Germany and up again 
into the Bavarian Alps. We had 
started early in the morning and our special 
train had made good time, and yet the late- 
coming darkness of the northern countries was 
closing around us when we rolled into the 
station at Oberammergau. During the last 
hour of daylight we had been watching the 
mountains grow up on the horizon, silhouetting 
against an ever-softening sky, until just as they 
became all shadows we plunged right into the 
heart of them, just as a bird on the wing with 
seeming abandon plunges into the heart of a 
dark evergreen tree, not into the strange and 
direful, but into the shelter and rest of home. 

Before arriving each "Anger' had been given 
a slip of paper on which was written the name 
of his host, in a few cases at an inn, but mostly 

150 



AT OBERAMMERGAU 151 

we were assigned to the homes of the villagers, 
where we were to get a taste of the real life of 
those wonderful people who have commanded 
the interest of the whole world. In the gloom 
of the station platform, which appeared walled 
in by darkness, it seemed as though it would 
require a miracle to untangle the multitude and 
set them right, but it was only necessary to 
shout the name of your host, and out of the 
gloom appeared a small boy with long hair and 
a picturesque costume, who took the luggage, 
and if you followed you were either landed in 
a wagon which would convey you to your stop- 
ping place, or conducted to the stopping place 
itself if it were near enough at hand. But we 
noticed it was not always a boy who responded; 
sometimes it was a woman, and quite as handily 
as the boy would she swing off with two heavy 
bags, while the chivalrous American trudged 
shamefully behind; — but what can one do? 
When you are with the Bavarians you must do 
as the Bavarians do, and the situation there is 
not unlike the farmer's " willing team," in 
which one horse was willing to do all the work 
and the other was willing that he should. The 
women seem willing to do about all the work, 
and while it hurts our sensibilities to see them 
do it, as a matter of fact they thrive upon it, 



152 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

and they amaze us with the glory of their 
physical strength, their ease if not always grace 
of action, and more than all, with their super- 
abundant good nature. There is probably no 
way in which we could abuse them more than 
to try to prove to them that they are abused, 
and in no other way so rouse their wounded 
dignity as to suggest that they are down- 
trodden. Perhaps they are missing a good 
many things we count among our necessities, 
but I came to one conclusion and that was, that 
any man who shall establish a sanitarium — or 
sanatorium — in the Bavarian Alps, for the 
cure of nervous prostration or corns, will starve 
to death in sixty days. 

Led by our small boy we crossed a bridge 
over what we afterwards learned was the river 
Ammer, passed into the square, which was 
lighted quite brilliantly, down a little side street, 
into the home of one Melchior Breitsamter, who 
gave us a most cordial welcome and an excellent 
supper. With his two daughters, Helene and 
Babette, two beautiful girls somewhere in the 
vicinity of twenty years of age, as willing 
assistants, Herr Breitsamter and his gentle 
Frau placed their home at our disposal. We had 
good food and plenty of it, good beds and every 
possible attention, and we knew not of extortion 



AT OBERAMMERGAU 



153 



in any way at their hands. Of course we had 
heard all the strained stories of the way people 
were herded together, and the extravagant prices 
demanded, and the 
poor accommoda- 
tions, but we have 
no such tale to tell. 
Perhaps "Angels " 
are different from 
other people, but in 
two hundred "An- 
gels," even, there is 
to be found a great 
deal of human na- 
ture, and we had our 
human nature with 
us, and yet the ver- 
dict was that we 

all got all we paid for, and some of us got a 
bargain. 

It was late when we arrived, still later when 
we had finished supper, and we were very tired, 
and must be up the next morning at five-thirty, 
to go to the church and see the morning mass 
which prepared the players for their perform- 
ance, and yet we could not refrain from a little 
turn about the square and a little peep into 
the shops, the windows of which were fascinat- 




OUR HOSTS. 



154 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

ing with wood carvings and curios, and still 
more winning to our curious eyes were the 
figures of the natives of the village, a few of 
whom were still flitting about the streets, seen 
for an instant in the light then fading away 
into the darkness. 

I did go to bed finally for the few hours 
remaining, but not to sleep. It was to lie there 
and think over the wonder-story of this mar- 
velous thing we had come thousands of miles 
to see. To think of this little village, set down 
in a bit of a valley away up in the Bavarian 
Alps, where three hundred years ago, out of their 
dire distress, a people had cried unto the Lord 
for help, had vowed to cry again and again 
every ten years, and through all the years their 
descendants had kept the vow they made, until 
so perfect did the crying become that it seemed 
like a song of sweetest music and charmed the 
world to its hearing. 

So often has the story of the origin of the 
Passion Play been told, so often has its story 
been repeated and its scenes described, that 
there is no need, were I able, to rehearse it 
again, and so I just want to wander through 
the town, and later sit through the play, and 
note my own impressions. For I came not 
as a critic; in truth I never wanted to come, 



AT OBERAMMERGAU 155 

for I feared that the play itself would be either 
distressingly amateurish or painfully irreverent. 
And yet through force of circumstances here 
I was on the spot, and disposed to be very open- 
minded and open-hearted. 

As I lay there in my bed that Saturday night 
before the Sunday which was to be one of the 
marked days in a lifetime, there came before 
me, pictured on the darkness and singing into 
my heart, to the music of the Ammer, which was 
hurrying along outside just under my window, 
the strange tale of this peculiar people. At 
intervals during the day, during our long ride 
from Eisenach, I had read of them; away off in 
America I had heard their story told, and seen 
them pictured upon canvas. I thought I knew 
them, and here I was in the very midst of them, 
and they kept me awake more keenly than all 
the glory of Berlin's splendor or her commercial 
activity. I do not yet know why. When, 
later, I came out from the play, and people 
asked me what I thought, I could only say, 
" Wait; I cannot think yet; wait three months, 
then perhaps I will tell you, but more than 
likely not." I am not sure I am awake yet, 
any more than I am sure I was asleep that 
Saturday night. This thing is mystic, mys- 
terious, it grips the imagination. One is liable 



156 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

to contradict himself a dozen times and yet be 
right all the time, or wrong, it may be. New- 
standards must be set up for judgment. Here 
are these peasants running a commercial enter- 
prise with acumen which excites the wonder of 
financiers; here are humble, plodding workmen 
and women acting so as to confound the 
masters of the stage; here, far removed from 
all the " opportunities " of modern civilization, 
civilization comes to sit in the seat of the 
learner. 

And here is another thing which came to 
me out of the darkness: These people are all 
Roman Catholic, the play is Roman Catholic 
in its origin and through its whole history and 
in its final purpose, and yet while it is all 
Roman Catholic on the stage, in the forty-five 
hundred people who sit before every perform- 
ance there are representatives of the modernist 
and conservative Catholic, of every possible 
phase of Protestant thought, liberal and ortho- 
dox Jews, Buddhist, Mohammedan, and heathen 
of the wide world, and all sit spellbound 
through the performance, and mostly all depart 
in silence. Are we not to think that there is 
something here which transcends our individual 
opinion? which is cosmic? No matter how 
many mistakes there are, no matter how crude 



AT OBERAMMERGAU 



157 



are many of the interpretations, no matter how 
inefficient many of the presentations, back of 
it all, or rising up through it all, is some great 
life-truth which makes its appeal to every heart 
and every mind. 

But this was all in anticipation. I had not 
seen the play and yet I was thinking it out, 
and I then became most curious to know what 
would happen to my thinking when I saw it, 
when I actually sat 
before the real thing. 
Well, I shall try to Js 

tell you in another 
chapter. You see, I 
am putting it off as 
long as I can, hoping 
that some inspiration 
may come to me, so 
that I can convey to 
others what it was to 
me. I know I did 
fall asleep sometime 
towards morning, to 
be awakened, it 
seemed to me, in- 
stantly, by the voice of our host saying it was 
half past five. That meant we must be up and 
away to the church in a very few minutes. 




THE CHURCH, 
OBERAMMERGAU. 



158 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

I am not going to tell about Sunday as the 
day of the performance of the Passion Play 
now, but am going to jump over to the evening 
after it was all over and we were turned loose 
in the village to see it in the full flush of its 
activity. For this Alpine village is unique, 
and is well worthy of study by even wiser 
men than we. 

In spite of the fact that we had just come 
from the most impressive religious service — I 
think I may call the play a service — it was 
hard to believe it was Sunday evening. There 
was absolutely nothing to indicate its sacred 
character; every store and shop was open and 
all were crowded with customers. Behind the 
counters were some of the people who an hour 
before were taking part in what is called the 
"World's Greatest Tragedy." Even the sa- 
loons were open, and after the German fashion 
many were in the gardens, partaking of their 
beer and enjoying the music. The streets were 
crowded with a most cosmopolitan throng. 
There are few places in which so many national- 
ities are represented as in the streets of Ober- 
ammergau on a Sunday evening after the play 
is over. And it is curious how irresistible is 
the spirit of the place. I confess that I could 
not force myself into a Sunday frame of mind. 



AT OBERAMMERGAU 159 

Now perhaps it was all but the reaction from 
the strain of the long day, the perfectly natural 
desire to free the mind from a captivity which 
was almost weird. Anyway, there we all were 
in the midst of a carnival of mild excitement. 
And I am not prepared to say that it was either 
good or bad, for probably it was so character- 
less as to be neither. 

The village of Oberammergau is so beautiful 
for situation that if it were known apart from 
its Passion Play it would attract tourists; 
not to the same extent perhaps, for there has 
to be more or less of the human element to draw 
humans. But there are few places in the 
world with greater charm than one finds and 
feels as he wanders through these crooked 
streets, from any of which he can look up to 
the sharp peak of the Kopfel, which rises four 
thousand feet, and on the extreme summit of 
which the villagers have placed a giant cross, 
which is the goal of all eyes and of the feet of 
those who are equal to the climb. The houses 
are treasures of interest. Many of them are 
ideal in shape, realizing the pictures we used to 
see in the geographies of childhood, and nearly 
all of them painted after the local fashion, with 
most elaborate scenes of a religious character. 
The artistic germ seems to be in the blood. Not 



160 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



only are the streets thus turned into picture 
galleries; even the dress of the natives gives 
opportunity for the taste for color and form; 
the pantaloons of every boy are decorated with 
painted or embroidered flowers, and there are 
none so poor as not to have a feather in the cap. 
They are a gentle, prudent and religious 
people; they have shut themselves into them- 
selves to carry out the vow of their fathers. 
Now we are to see how they have carried it out 
and perhaps note some of the results on a peo- 
ple who for three centuries have had a common 
purpose, and that a religious purpose. 





CHAPTER XIV 
THE PASSION PLAY 

A SERIOUS ACCOUNT AND INTERPRETATION 

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and 
we beheld his glory" 

|NLY the most unpardonable con- 
ceit or the most exquisite rever- 
ence would venture to realize this 
thought. And I am going to ap- 
proach the Passion Play of Oberammergau in 
the belief that, consciously or unconsciously, 
the motive of its original and each succeed- 
ing production was the reverent desire and 
purpose of the people of this little Alpine vil- 
lage to bring their Christ in the flesh to dwell 
among them, that they might behold his 
glory. Only thus can we hope fairly to inter- 
pret the play and judge the players. 

A great many who go there expecting to see 
their own Christ, the Christ of Protestant Ger- 
many, England and America, whose growth 
has been nourished by modern scholarship, are 
disappointed and disposed to be hypercritical, 
even disposed to violate their own scientific 

161 



162 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

method in the harshness of their judgment. 
To see the play at its best and thoroughly to 
appreciate it requires an open mind, a warm 
heart and a fertile imagination, and the con- 
stant reassurance that we have come thousands 
of miles to see, not our own Christ, but the 
Christ of the village priest as interpreted by 

the potter, Anton 
Lang. And the 
question whether 
our Christ is better 
than his is not ger- 
mane. 

Both to justify 

and to understand 

the Passion Play as 

it is, it is necessary 

/ x that we come to it 

..a along the path of 

its own origin and 

growth, and so I must very briefly recall the 

story. 

In the year 1633 a terrible plague raged 
fearfully in all the country around Oberam- 
mergau, and in spite of all the precautions of 
the villagers, came with its appalling disaster. 
The people, realizing their helplessness, cried 
unto the Lord for mercy. They gathered in 




THE PASSION PLAY 163 

their church and, bowing themselves in suppli- 
cation, vowed that if the Lord would hear their 
prayer and have mercy they would perform the 
tragedy of the Lord Christ's passion every ten 
years. It is said that from the day on which 
the vow was made the plague was stayed and 
there were no more deaths. Then began the 
preparation for the performance of their vow. 
The play was to be given not for the villagers 
but by them, by all of them, and that meant 
specific preparation by every member of the 
community. It meant the most complete or- 
ganization and the most perfect cooperation; it 
meant the practical dedication of every man, 
woman and child to a common purpose, not 
for a brief period, for a passing scene, but for 
life and for generations of lives. Once in ten 
years each and every one was to take some 
part in this great drama through which they 
were to bring their Lord Christ into their 
midst, into the flesh, to dwell among them, 
that they might behold him, and know him, 
and love him and serve him. Naturally, to 
reproduce the Christ was the ideal; all the 
other parts were simply accessory. It became 
the ambition of the village to be worthy and 
able to fill that part; mothers bore children and 
dreamed that they might attain to that su- 



164 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

preme glory. As generations passed, not only 
was the play given with more and more elabora- 
tion and greater perfection of detail, but it 
began also to develop a new type, a peculiar 
people, quite distinct from even their near 
neighbors; certain physical characteristics and 
mental traits appeared, and those who at first, 
in all probability, made but sorry work of 
their impersonations grew into their parts. 
And after they had rehearsed for nearly three 
hundred years we gathered with forty-five hun- 
dred people from every part of the world to 
witness the performance, which was given pri- 
marily, be it understood, not for our witnessing 
but in the performance of a vow, and, theo- 
retically at least, would have been given just the 
same had not one of us been there to witness it. 
Just grasp that idea. While these people have 
built a great covered auditorium for the con- 
venience of those who come, and while they 
have made use of the means which the visitors 
have brought them to beautify and make more 
elaborate their performance, yet there remains 
measurably the same ideal with which the 
play began. If people come, they are made 
welcome, but they are not asked to come; there 
is no advertising on the part of the community. 
Once in ten years they are to give the Passion 



THE PASSION PLAY 



165 



of their Lord. If the world wants to see it, it is 
welcome, but their vow will be performed just 
the same whether the world comes or not. 

At half past seven in the morning we joined 
the vast multitude of people which, coming 
from every direction, centered its face upon the 
great auditorium. The arrangements for the 




BABETTE. 



HERR BREITSAMTER. 



HELENE. 



seating were perfect; the ticket tells you the 
door you are to enter and the seat you are to 
occupy. At a quarter of eight we were seated in 
the front center. Over us was arched a mighty 
dome of a roof of lofty height; the entire front 
was open and we looked out, literally out, upon 
a great platform, entirely open to the sky, upon 
which there was another stage, itself larger than 
that of any ordinary theater, which was ar- 



166 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

ranged to show the tableaux. On either side 
of this opened the streets of Jerusalem; to the 
right appeared the house of the High Priest 
and on the left that of the ruler, Pilate. Be- 
yond we look out upon the actual mountains, 
and up into the sky, overcast with clouds, from 
which all through the day there came occasional 
showers, which made not the slightest difference 
with the performers. We were sheltered, but 
the play is enacted entirely in the open. 

At exactly eight o'clock the chorus of forty 
singers, in most elaborate oriental costumes, 
appear from either side, coming in single file 
to meet in the center of the platform at the 
extreme front. A splendid orchestra accom- 
panies the singing, which throughout the day 
sustains the highest standards of music. "Pro- 
logus " speaks the prelude, which in the first 
case is a welcome and then an announcement 
of the tableau which is to follow. The entire 
play is in German, but with an English transla- 
tion in hand there is no difficulty in following 
it in every detail. 

The plan of the performance is to have music 
and then a tableau preceding every scene, the 
tableau being an incident from the Old Testa- 
ment supposedly connected in some way with 
the scene following, which is to be enacted. 



THE PASSION PLAY 167 

The first action is that of the triumphal entry 
into Jerusalem, and then follows with real con- 
tinuity every step of the way in the story of 
the life of Jesus to the cross, the sepulcher and 
the resurrection. From the time of the open- 
ing scene at eight o'clock in the morning until 
twelve o'clock noon there is no break, hardly 
a pause, the only relief from the strain being 
the coming and going of the chorus and the 
passing tableaux. At noon there is a recess of 
two hours, and then the action continues again, 
all the time with growing intensity as the 
climax is approached, until six o'clock in the 
evening, when it is over. 

The opening scene was a revelation of the 
dramatic resources of this people both in stage 
management and individual acting and elocu- 
tion. Down the long street which reached 
such a distance that people were actually re- 
duced in size by the perspective, came the great 
multitude, — and it was really a multitude, re- 
peatedly there were from five hundred to seven 
hundred people on the stage at the same time, 
— and never have I seen such stage control. 
Every one, whether child or man, was in the 
exact position he should be at the exact time 
he should be there, and the movement of that 
coming host was the perfection of realism as it 



168 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

swept down past the house of the High Priest 
and on to the temple steps. And the shouting 
that came at first as from a great distance 
swelled into a tremendous volume as there 
appeared in the midst the Master, riding on an 
ass. In front of the temple he dismounts, 
greets a disciple, places his hand on the head 
of a little child, and then, his attention being 
called to the desecration of the temple by the 
traders, he picks up a small lash of cords and 
drives them out, and thus precipitates the con- 
flict which ultimately bears him to the cross. 

It is impossible to follow in detail through all 
these scenes showing the gathering of the San- 
hedrim, when the traders present their deter- 
mination to put Jesus to death, but in such a 
way as not to excite the opposition of the popu- 
lace; the bargaining with Judas, the Last 
Supper, the betrayal, the trial before the San- 
hedrim, before the rulers, the condemnation, 
the crucifixion and the resurrection. It was all 
frightfully realistic, and it was not difficult to 
imagine that you had been looking upon real 
life instead of its mimic. 

Through all these scenes moved the figures 
of those made familiar by the story of the New 
Testament, and here the striking genius of 
these wonderful people is revealed in the perfect 



THE PASSION PLAY 



169 



balance of the cast. It does not matter how 
insignificant the part, it is just as conscien- 
tiously taken as the most important; and here 
is the secret of the whole thing, the loss of the 




ANTON LANG IN HIS WORKSHOP. 



individual in the whole. The child, but a bit 
more than a baby, which wabbles around in the 
way of the multitude, is not an accident, a 
happen so, but a part of the cast, doing its 
part with a painstaking care and a sense of the 
fact that the success of the part of Christus is 



170 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

dependent on that little child as well as upon 
Anton Lang. 

And yet it is impossible not to consider 
the relative merits of the individual actors, — 
though it is hardly fair to call them " actors/' 
for they are primarily really participants in a 
religious service. Their priest was wont to say 
to them on the morning of the performance: 
"It is not our aim to shine in the art of acting; 
that would be presumptuous and ridiculous in 
simple country people; but it must be the 
earnest desire of each one to try to present 
worthily this most holy mystery. Each one 
who takes the least part in this work is a 
necessary link in a great chain; let him there- 
fore endeavor to fulfill his task with devotion, 
to the best of his ability, and thus contribute 
to the success of the whole." 

But it is not within human nature to reach 
this ideal; each trying to do his part perfectly, 
no matter how much he may try to sub- 
ordinate it to the whole, is bound to feel the 
influence of some of the baser virtues. And 
the audience is sure to pass judgments and make 
comparisons. Of course the center of interest 
is the character of Christus and the ability 
of Anton Lang in portraying it, and I was 
intensely interested in the spontaneous verdicts 



THE PASSION PLAY 171 

of the people. Perhaps our own particular 
company was so unique as not fairly to indicate 
the average. We were, generally, what are 
known as "Liberal Christians"; we had our 
own conception of Christ; and quite generally 
there was the complaint that the Christus of 
Anton Lang was altogether too weak, there 
was a lack of virility. It was even noticeable 
how some compared the acting of Lang with 
that of Zwink, who took the part of Judas. 
They thought that Zwink would put fire and 
energy and life into the character of Christus. 
I recall my own impressions of Lang, and 
months of consideration have but strengthened 
them. He took the old and conventional and 
non-resistant conception of the Master, and 
having taken it, he was marvelously true to it, 
and I am more and more impressed with the 
wisdom of his choice and its historic accuracy. 
The Christ which brought in the new dis- 
pensation is a unique figure in human life, 
he belongs to a new order, and he must do 
things by what seem contraries. In the scene 
when he entered the temple to drive forth the 
traders, at first the terror and wrath of those 
rough men seemed but an absurdity in the 
presence of that gentle face, those mildly 
spoken words, and that foolish little whip of 



172 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

cords, and his loosing of the doves, which at 
once flew happily about over the audience, 
was a veritable act of love; but presently it 
began to dawn upon me that here was a true 
conception of the part, and masterly acting. 
Had a Christ of the aggressive type swung into 
that place with a loud voice and a club he would 
not have produced the slightest impression 
upon those men; they would simply have 
answered him with a louder voice and a larger 
club. They were used to that sort of thing. 
But here was something new and strange and 
mysterious; those men were face to face with 
a power they could not understand, and they 
were afraid and fled. That is, the Christ comes 
into the world not only with more power but 
with a new power. To give him such a charac- 
ter as was suggested by the acting of Zwink as 
Judas, is simply to reduce him to the common- 
place. But Lang sets him apart, a unique 
and yet royal figure. 

The conspicuous characters in the play are 
all taken by those who have brought them up 
to the highest standards of the stage, but 
throughout that whole day the Christus of 
Lang was in constant evidence, and never for 
a moment did he depart from a consistent 
presentation of a conception of Christ which 



THE PASSION PLAY 173 

may be old and may not appeal to the crass 
spirit of to-day, but which will yet conquer 
the world. Reluctantly I had gone to my 
place in that audience on the Sunday which 
must evermore be memorable; fearfully I 
anticipated the aesthetic and intellectual shocks 
which the day might bring; but after the 
Christus had entered the temple and revealed 
the Christ which was made flesh before us, I 
followed him reverently and lovingly into the 
Sanhedrim and watched the rough waves of 
human anger and selfishness and greed surge 
and beat against that gentle rock, only to fall 
away impotent; into the upper chamber where 
at the Last Supper the Master was the servant 
of all; into Gethsemane where the selfish and 
superficial Judas betrayed him in his foolish 
effort to serve; before the High Priest and 
before the rulers, when the mad and fickle 
multitude reviled him, but he reviled not 
again; I followed with breaking heart as he 
fell beneath the burden of the cross which he 
was made to bear; I stood afar off with that 
group of women when he was lifted upon the 
cross, and there was a great sob in my throat 
and a cry of pain upon my lips when the spear 
touched his side and he was dead. And I was 
there when with loving hands they lowered him 



174 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

into the loving arms of those who waited at 
the foot, and my heart joined in the Hallelujah 
Chorus when he arose from the dead to be 
forever the life and the light of the world. 

Yes, I know this is all foolishness in the light 
of the newer criticism; I know that my imagina- 
tion caught away my reason, and that I was 
swept off my feet by sentiment, but I have 
never yet discovered that " reason " is any 
more reliable, in the long run, than imagination 
and sentiment. And so I choose to bring away 
from Oberammergau, not a critical judgment 
of the play or the people, of social or theologi- 
cal speculations, of Protestant and Romish dif- 
ferences, but just a simple impression upon my 
heart that the Christ was made flesh there 
before me, and I beheld his glory. 




CHAPTER XV 

DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 

LINGERING FOR A FEW LAST OBSERVATIONS, 
THE ANGELS DESCEND TO THE EARTH AT 
MUNICH 

UR stay in Oberammergau was brief 
of necessity, for like every one else, 
ii^^TJ^H we must away, that others might 
'ii i S . <n\ 1 fog accommodated. But how one's 
thoughts linger there among the hills! From 
any of the heights which amphitheater the 
little valley through which flows the Ammer, 
particularly from the Kopfel, which rises almost 
sheer from the bank of the river, one may look 
down upon quite the most remarkable village 
in Europe; not especially in appearance, for 
in many can be found nearly the same type 
of architecture, and in some the same style 
of ornamentation; there is the one prominent 
and imposing church spire, the same rambling 
streets which have no logical beginning or end; 
but when the crust of commercialism which 
has been formed by the surging through of 
hundreds of thousands of the world's people 

175 



176 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

has been broken and we reach the real life of 
the people whose homes are here, a new social 
atmosphere is discovered, something quite 
unique. What I have in mind I cannot de- 
scribe, but possibly can illustrate. 

In the home where I was domiciled, the 
father took the important part of Joshua the 
priest in the Passion Play. It is a "speaking" 
part. He has no long address, but all through 
the day he is constantly interjecting a sentence 
or more, so that he must remember a great 
many "cues," and it would naturally be sup- 
posed that he would be under much nervous 
strain. His two daughters are prominent 
singers in the chorus, and must appear before 
each and every scene; his son is a member of 
the orchestra. These people had ten guests 
who slept under their humble and not wide- 
spreading roof, and they had at their table at 
times as many as thirty to feed. They were 
doing all the work themselves, and doing it 
faultlessly. When we left the house at half 
past seven in the morning, they were attending 
to their household duties without a sign of 
haste, or the slightest indication that presently 
they were to be filling their parts in the greatest 
tragedy ever presented, and before what in 
numbers and character was an unparalleled 



DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 177 

audience. Half an hour later they were in 
their places on the stage, their commonplace 
garb of the house replaced by the costumes 
of their parts. When the curtain fell at 
twelve o'clock, I left the building and walked 
directly to the house, taking not more than 
ten minutes, and found the father and daughters 
in their home costumes, ready to serve us. 
The same thing was again enacted in the 
afternoon. The thing was weird, incompre- 
hensible. 

Think of one of our trained actors or singers, 
however familiar their parts, being disturbed 
by a trifling care or interruption! And this 
is the point: — Those people are not actors 
and singers in our sense of the word; their 
part on the stage really does not differ from 
waiting on the table or making a bed at home. 
It is the life they have grown into, and have 
been growing into for three hundred years, 
and they go about one just as they go about 
the other. From childhood that man had 
expected to have a household to look after, 
and from childhood that man had expected 
to have some part in that play; and just as 
he did little things about the house in child- 
hood, taking more and more responsibility, so 
in childhood he went into the child's place in 



178 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the tableaux, and then into other parts, and 
there was never a sense of the strange to him. 

As with " Joshua," so with all the others, 
even those who rilled what we would call the 
" star " parts. All those people were up at 
daylight in the morning, doing their household 
work and looking after the cattle in their 
barns, or setting things going in their factories, 
or putting their shops in order, finding time 
to respond to the call of the bells for early 
mass; so far as could be seen there was not one 
extra heart-throb, no hurry, no impatience, no 
worry, no fear that some one would fail, no 
anxiety about the audience being pleased, no 
question about the weather; in fact here was a 
community going about its business without 
a thought of anything else. Strangers were 
here in their midst, and were to be hospitably 
taken care of, they were to be given every 
facility to see the play if they wanted to, but 
their being there had nothing to do with it; 
the play would go on just the same. 

We can say what we want to about the 
limitations of these people, that they grow up 
narrow in thought and experience; they know 
nothing of the great world, and have none of 
the ambitions which are thrilling modern life 
in other lands, but they have attained unto 



DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 179 

physical content. If ambition stirs them, it 
is but for a larger part in the play. Great 
wealth has come to the community, but it is 
so divided that none are rich and none are poor; 
and if they have not been able to go out into 
the world, behold, why should they? — for 
the world has come to them. 

And so it appears to me in a vague way that 
while the wise men of the universities and the 
masters and slaves of our commercial world 
struggle and fight to solve the social problem, 
lo, the children of this little village have found 
its solution, and the key to their success is in 
having in common a great purpose which is 
entirely outside of all personal and selfish 
interests. Our community struggles aim at 
the betterment of self. Their community 
struggle is for the glory of God, for the king- 
dom of heaven, and behold, all these things, 
comfort, peace, contentment, happiness, and 
the attention of the whole world, are added 
unto them. 

Munich did not appeal especially to the 
"Angels," but it was the fault of the "Angels" 
and not of Munich. The few hours' ride from 
Oberammergau to the capital of Bavaria was 
significant in a good many ways to the whole 
party. Most of us, if not all, had been up- 



180 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



lifted and profoundly moved by the suggestions 
of the Passion Play, and this next step in our 
journey was a dropping down to the lower level 
of real life, into the hurly-burly of this every- 
day world. And the place from which we 
came and the place to which we were going 
were in many ways typical of our states of 
mind, and I am not saying which was the 




KARLSPLATZ, MUNICH. 



better. I know that there is nothing more 
tragic than to be forever on the heights, and 
nothing more pitiful than to live always in the 
artificial. Anyway we came down, and the 
coming down meant the first break in the party 
which a month before started from Boston. 
At Munich sixty-five "Angels" who were 
theologically and financially worthy were to 
leave us for an extended tour of Hungary 
during which they were to join in the four 



DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 181 

hundredth anniversary of the establishment 
of the Unitarian Church in that country. 
This parting of the ties which had held us all 
in such delightful fellowship was naturally the 
occasion of much regret and, I confess, of not 
a little envy on the part of those of us who 
must miss what afterwards was revealed to 
us by those who went as the climax of new 
experiences. However, there is a good deal of 
philosophy in the normal "Angel," and while 
it was not for us to venture farther afield, there 
was a considerable sense of satisfaction in the 
thought that we had turned our faces towards 
home. Home was yet a long way off, and there 
intervened many new sensations and nearly a 
month of travel, but we had turned the corner 
and in our mind's eye we saw floating above 
the flags of the European nations the Stars 
and Stripes, and we did not care for much else 
just then. 

Yes, we did want something else, and that 
was — rest. From the start we had swept 
along at a tremendous rate, seeing more and 
seeing it better than we had any right to 
expect, but the wear and tear were beginning 
to tell even on the strongest. And that is the 
chief reason why Munich failed to arouse very 
much enthusiasm. And yet we " did " the 



182 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

city in true tourist style. It was our first 
experience in the "sight-seeing auto." We 
had been " specials " riding in carriages, ex- 
cepting when we "coached" through the 
Shakespeare country, but there is a great social 
gulf fixed between a coach with four horses 
and a sight-seeing auto; the former is aristo- 
cratic, the latter democratic. But as we be- 
came better acquainted we felt it was good to 
get together and multiply our own pleasures, 
as we always do in sharing them with others. 

Munich is a great city, second in many 
respects to Berlin, but at the season of the year 
when the world comes to see the Passion Play 
its accommodations are wholly inadequate. 
Every one comes to Munich as the nearest 
point, and as a consequence, when we were 
there enjoying all the comforts of a hotel home 
which had been reserved for us for many months 
in advance, others of our fellow countrymen, 
as well as those from other lands, were thankful 
for the high-priced privilege of riding around 
all night in a hack, or the free favor of a bench 
in the park, but without a feather bed to cover 
them. Fortunately the nights are short, just 
as they are in Berlin, and the wayfarer can 
have no reason to be lonesome as long as he 
has the price of a stein of beer, for the gardens 



DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 183 

with their bounty of music and refreshment do 
not close much before the morning begins to 
open. Perhaps this is a reason for a part of 
the reputation of Bavaria as the place where 
more beer per capita is drunk than in any other 
on the face of the earth. Statistics are most 
astounding things and are not always justified 
by visible facts. We read in a reliable publi- 
cation that every one of the population of 
Munich consumes on the average fifty one and 
one-half gallons of beer per year. That means 
pretty nearly a gallon a week for every man, 
woman and child, and on the face of the returns 
it did not look as though there would be much 
time or disposition on the part of any citizen 
to do anything else than drink, and it looked 
as though Munich was no place for " Angels.' ' 
But on examination we noticed that this vast 
amount of drinking was done entirely " upon 
the average," and as long as we kept off the 
" average" we should be safe. And we learned 
too that we could keep off the average, even 
while visiting the most popular centers of 
interest, the beer gardens themselves, for as 
it is true that one can visit a deer park with- 
out being called upon to eat venison, so one 
can visit a beer garden without drinking 
beer. But we ran against the most satanic in- 



184 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

vention in this connection. While we were 
" doing " the city we were set down at what 
is probably the greatest brewery in the world 
and connected with it the usual garden and 
music, and when we entered to see the sights 
we had placed before us that distinctly German 
product, the pretzel. Now there is nothing 
in the whole range of thirst encouragement 
which is in the same class with the pretzel. 
That innocent-looking little, twisted-up con- 
glomerate of flour, water and salt will waken 
more visions of purling streams, crystal springs, 
flowing fountains and — other things, than ever 
came to the prophet of an oriental religion in 
his maddest ecstasy. 

One other product of Germany came within 
the range of our vision while in Munich, and 
that was the scarred student. I do not know 
from what institution he came, but from ap- 
pearance he had taken every degree and was 
fitted for the battle of life; one eye was nearly 
closed because of the drawing together of a 
wound on his upper cheek, his nose had more 
apertures than nature designed, and his whole 
face seemed to have been the field for the dis- 
play of hieroglyphic illustration with the rapier. 
While not so common as in former times, 
student dueling still holds its place in the life 



DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 185 

of the student body, and is but the German 
phase of student foolishness the world over, 
when those who have the best opportunities 
and from whom we have a right to expect the 
most and the best, sacrifice to fun that which 
they can never regain. And this " amuse- 
ment " is looked upon with favor not only by 
the German people but by the Emperor him- 
self, who is an enthusiastic defender of the 
" Mensur." It appeals to him as an oppor- 
tunity to cultivate the militant spirit on which 
his own policy if not his own throne rests. 
For the trifling and transient glory of a student 
association, this splendid specimen of young 
manhood was to go through a lifetime of secret 
regret, however open and aggressive his pride. 
A scar may be the badge of honor or the in- 
signia of folly. 

But there is a brighter and a better side 
to Munich, to which we had not time to do 
justice, and yet which left its impression upon 
us. We spent some hours in the National 
Museum and found a collection of paintings 
which added to our wonder at the prolific 
genius of the Old Masters. We rode through 
wonderful streets of fine residences and public 
buildings which will compare favorably with 
those of any of the great capitals of Europe. 



186 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

We paused before monuments enduring in 
merit as well as of immediate interest. Here, 
as everywhere where life has lasted long 
enough, we saw that art and religion had been 
wedded, and in the churches the Masters had 
left their undying sign, and in the galleries 
religion had been the inspiration of the works 
which command the admiration of the ages. 
" Modern art " is everywhere, but as compared 
with the products of the older times, it is not 
ripe, and seems but commonplace. The reason 
is that modern art has not reached for so high 
an ideal, and though oftentimes it appears to 
have been technically more true, it yet lacks 
that soul which gives to it life and im- 
mortality. 

In our hotel, which stood at one side of the 
principal square of the city and to enter which 
we must pass through one of the old gates in 
the ancient wall of the city, which stands as 
it has stood for hundreds of years, a great rude 
bulwark, and yet spanning the new street with 
an arch of beautiful proportions, we found the 
proprietor to be a German, and yet he had 
spent fifteen years in the city of Chicago, and 
when he touched hands with one who knew 
and could talk of the buildings and streets and 
interests of our western city, which was but 



DOWN FROM THE HEIGHTS 



187 



a baby compared with his native town, his 
face lighted with pleasure, and his mouth was 
full of kind words and pleasant memories of 
America. He was one of the many who have 
come into our land poor in experience and in 
purse, to return later to the Fatherland rich 
in both, and to reproduce there something of 
the spirit of the new world. 

After all, the "Angels " are grateful to 
Munich; it afforded what we most needed at 
the time, rest and recreation, a relaxing of the 
nerves, a preparation for the wonders yet 
awaiting us there to the southwest, where rose 
the snow-capped Alps of Switzerland with her 
glories of scenery and of history. 

In the early morning the sixty-five were off 
for Hungary, the rest of us to visit William Tell. 





CHAPTER XVI 

THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 

HAVE THEIR FILL OF SCENERY — TO SAY 
NOTHING OF OTHER THINGS 

r N proportion to its area Switzer- 
land affords more different routes 
to the upper regions than any other 
country on the globe. We followed 
some of them, and though none of us got high 
enough to slip in at the gate of heaven, we 
were mostly satisfied with the altitude, and 
willing to postpone indefinitely any closer ac- 
quaintance with the celestial city. Human 
nature reveals its unselfishness even when it 
takes the form of "Angels." It was but 
natural to suppose that some members at least 
of our party, with their strong religious pre- 
dilections, would be prepared, and not only 
prepared but eager, to grasp the opportunity 
to solve the mystery of our future by leaving 
this commonplace old world, to tread the golden 
streets of the New Jerusalem. But with one 
accord we denied ourselves the privilege when 
the opportunity was given us, and came back 

188 



THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 



189 



to this everyday world with a cheerful spirit. 
We noted one curious thing about the trip to 
the heights; while tradition has always told 
us that to get to heaven we must keep on going 
up, when we were on the loftiest summit we 
learned that the quickest way to get there was 
to plunge straight down. This is but another 




ZURICH AND THE ALPS. 



of the curious contradictions in which our the- 
ology is continually involving us. 

It was not long after leaving Munich before 
we began to catch glimpses of the heights to 
which we were bound, but really the first taste 
of the genuine Swiss scenery came when we 
skirted along the shore of Lake Constance and 
looked out over its blue waters, and it dawned 
upon us that this little country to which we 
were going was a good deal more of a place than 



190 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

we had fancied. On almost any map which 
comes to the hand of the ordinary traveler 
Switzerland is just about five inches long and 
three and a half inches wide, and the lakes 
an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide, 
and yet we rode for miles and miles along the 
shore of Constance, and then made a dash 
across country through hills which grew into 
mountains as we watched, and came to our first 
stop in the city of Zurich. 

A good many things happened in Zurich, and 
there was plenty of room, for this city numbers 
one hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants 
and has all the conveniences and beauties of 
any modern city; in all that goes to make 
prosperity and fulfill the demands of present- 
day life, Zurich is quite up to date, and wholly 
uninteresting, but the things the modern city 
is trying to hide are still there, and if one can 
find them they are well worth while. 

We had thought to end everything connected 
with the Liberal Congress at Eisenach, but in 
the city of Zwingli it is impossible to keep one's 
thoughts entirely on the secular. We must 
needs see the " Gross-Munster " in which four 
hundred years ago this great preacher thundered 
against the sins of his day, and in the presence 
of that dignified old pile, which the centuries 



THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 191 

have done their best to destroy with their 
improvements, there came a thought or two 
about the place of the church and the minister 
in the development of all that is best in civiliza- 
tion. It is not a little irritating to hear the 
superficial crying out against the ministry as 
" nonproductive," when we have but to go 
back a little way in history to discover the 
primacy of the ministry of the Christian 
Church in every form of creation of which 
modern civilization is productive. Here is this 
city of modern wonder in its recent achieve- 
ment, boasting of its commercial greatness, 
rejoicing in everything which goes to make 
life easy and comfortable; and yet the best 
things about Zurich trace their beginnings back 
to the minister who preached the gospel with 
fearlessness, and fixed the principles of his 
faith in the hearts of his people, where they 
took root and grew and are bearing their fruit 
to-day. At the eastern end of Switzerland, 
Zwingli; at the western, Calvin; not far away 
in southern Germany, Luther, — men of differ- 
ent types, men of so distinct theology that they 
were unfriendly, men who were only groping 
for the light which came so gloriously later, — 
these were the forerunners of religious liberty 
and of civil freedom, and in spite of all their 



192 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

limitations, and what to us were their strange 
theological notions, and often their intolerant 
spirit, they are the men who stamped their 
image in enduring history, while those who in 
their day, just as their descendants do to-day, 
cried out against them, and thought they were 
doing nothing for the world, that they were 
nonproductive, have disappeared and left no 
sign. 

Some day we shall begin to know the truth 
that things seen are temporal, things unseen 
eternal. The old church stands there in the 
new city because of the unseen spirit which 
dwells within it, because it has a soul and it 
lives, while other things decay. All that is 
best and enduring in Zurich centers around 
the message of the Gospel, which coming to it 
in olden time has been translated into life. 

There is another wonderful church in the 
city, Kreuz-Kirche, and to it we were invited 
by the liberal-minded pastor, who desired to 
express his cordial greetings to the delegates 
from America. He had been with us at 
Berlin, and could not let us pass through his 
own city without showing his hospitality. And 
so we climbed what, without the made steps, 
would be an almost inaccessible cliff, on which 
had been built one of the most magnificent 



THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 



193 




KREUZ-KIRCHE. 



and certainly one of the most unique modern 
churches in all Europe. We could but wonder, 
as we climbed, how it was ever expected that 
a congregation would 
be so devoted as to 
make that ascent 
every Sunday, and 
yet when we stood 
at last before the 
great entrance and 
looked within, and 
heard the glorious 
music from a sweet 
and powerful organ, 
and saw the welcom- 
ing hand extended, and later heard the gracious 
words of the pastor, translated into our own 
language by one of our own number, and still 
later listened to an address in beautiful English 
by an eminent citizen of the city, all voicing 
welcome and worth, it was easy to feel the lure 
of the place. And when we came out, each 
with a souvenir in his hand and a delightful 
memory in the heart, and paused again on the 
steps, where groups of Swiss women were 
seated, all busy knitting, having come from 
their homes in the valley below to feel the 
inspiration of the place, or to see the strangers, 



194 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

and we all stood in silence, looking off over the 
city which lay at our feet, away across the beau- 
tiful Lake of Zurich, which stretched for thirty 
miles away through the mountains, and yet 
beyond, making a jagged horizon, rose the splen- 
did peaks we had come thousands of miles to 
see, we felt there was a reason why the people 
should come to this place to worship. 

And the thought came to me that it is 
possible that we make our churchgoing too 
easy, so that it is not appreciated and people 
do not care for it. We in this country feel 
that we must not have any steps to climb 
and no hard floors to walk upon, and no hard 
seats upon which to sit, and when we have 
made the way easy, behold, the people do not 
come. When our people go away we follow 
after them, running hither and thither wherever 
they go, setting down a church building right 
before them, thinking to trap them, like birds, 
and we do not catch them. But there stands 
the old church of Zwingli just where it has stood 
for many centuries. The people have drifted 
far away, and yet generation after generation 
they come back to respond to the call of wor- 
ship. And that new and marvelous church 
which crowns the cliff, a thing of beauty and 
a marvel in our sight, though it be so inacces- 



THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 195 

sible, will, I prophesy, not want for worshipers 
when the centuries have mellowed and ripened 
it, and it takes its place among the immortals. 
Among all the incidents of this fruitful 
summer, there is nothing which lingers more 
fondly in my heart than our moonlight ride 
on the lake. It was late when we came down 
from the heights where we had worshiped, and 
by the time we had finished our supper it was 
nine o'clock, and then we saw the great yellow 
moon rising over the dark mountain line of 
the horizon, and presently its light was dancing 
over the waters of the lake and every ripple 
seemed to be a golden finger beckoning to us 
to come. It was simply irresistible, and a 
dozen of us secured a little motor boat, and 
pushed out of the river Limmat, on both sides 
of which the city is built, into the great lake, 
the surface of which was like liquid precious 
stone, held in place by the long clasps of gold 
which reached out from every light along the 
shore. We looked back to the bewilderment 
of electricity which the city showed; we looked 
forward to mountains made so changeable and 
mysterious by the shifting shadows that they 
seemed to have life; we followed the shores set 
with the cottages and little villages, and felt 
thrilling along the rays of light which streamed 



196 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

out from them something of the home spirit 
which was there. And then one among us, 
rich of life and sweet of voice, one who loved 
the old songs and sang them because she loved, 
lifted her voice and sang one after another of 
those songs which are a part of the home life 
of America. And sometimes we all joined in 
some familiar strain, and there went dancing 
over the waves of the Lake of Zurich the spirit 
of our own home life to answer the message of 
light from the home of the Swiss. 

Such was our introduction to Switzerland, 
and nothing could be more fitting. There are 
a good many harsh and practical things in this 
little country. There are many rugged moun- 
tain roads as well as woodland paths beside 
which the flowers bloom; there are blotches 
of blood upon the country's history; there are 
shadows of awful struggle for social and civil 
liberty; there are being worked out among 
these hard conditions some of the greatest and 
most vital problems of human life; there no 
doubt are to be found numberless instances of 
the sacrifice of lives in the frightful struggle 
with poverty; but we were on a summer journey, 
and I chose to see the beautiful and the good. 
I am no student of race conditions and will not 
burden my soul with statistics. Already I love 



THE ANGELS IN SWITZERLAND 



197 



the mountains and adore the lakes, already the 
spiritual and the sentimental and the poetic 
possess me, and I am a willing captive. Per- 
haps this is all but a new " Sentimental Jour- 
ney." Well, so let it be; I had rather be 
William Tell dead than Emperor William living. 





CHAPTER XVII 

THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 
PROVES TO BE THE WORLD IN MINIATURE 

HE man who drove William Tell into 
the land of fable should be hanged 
beside the murderer of Santa Claus 
and both their bodies buried in the 
sands of the sea, " where the tide ebbs and 
flows twice in twenty-four hours." I do not 
know that the ebb and flow of the tide would 
add anything to their punishment, but the 
phrase has a sort of shivery sound, and I am 
willing to make their fate as horrible as possible. 
They deserve it. To banish an ideal is a 
greater crime than to kill the real, for the real 
without ideals is better dead than alive. 
Switzerland is the whole world in miniature. 
The spirit of William Tell is the soul of Switzer- 
land. Without that soul to hold together all 
these little states or cantons, with their differ- 
ent languages, customs, costumes, manners and 
peoples, there would be no Switzerland, but 
some little fractions of territory added to the 
surrounding nations. 

198 



THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 



199 



Once upon a time there dwelt at the head of 
the Lake of the Four Cantons, in the little 
town of Altdorf, a man in whose soul burned 
the spirit of freedom and he refused to recognize 
the authority of the Austrian governor, and, 




SWISS CHALET 



alone, he defied the oppressor. He was put to 
a test of skill that was a trial and punishment 
combined, and then, continuing his rebellious 
spirit, he was made captive, but made his 
escape, and he and those whom he inspired 
with a like spirit won the independence of 
their country. Through long years and genera- 



200 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

tions he was known as William Tell, and the 
story of his courage made him the hero of the 
whole world. In his native town a great 
statue was erected to mark the spot of his de- 
fiance. Out of his spirit of independence grew 
a republic, which maintained its life in the 
face of bitter and powerful foes. For more 
than five hundred years it has endured and 
has been a leavening influence among the 
nations of the whole world. And then there 
came a little bit of a man who had nothing 
better to do than to hunt round after what he 
called " truth." He found that a great many 
of the incidents connected with the story of Tell 
were not facts; he could not locate William's 
grandfather, and it was doubtful about his 
having any grandchildren. His mother-in- 
law had no place in the town records, his bow 
and arrow were not preserved in the museum, 
and even the apple, core and all, had dis- 
appeared. Therefore there was no William 
Tell, and never had been. 

I am always sorry for those people whose 
truth is no larger than facts. Poor is the 
nation which has no history other than facts. 
The dreams and visions, the hopes and ambi- 
tions, the heroism and idealism, the myths and 
legends, the sentiment and emotion, — these are 



THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 201 

the things which not only make nations, but 
they make nations and about everything else 
worth while. A mountain is a fact, but it is 
only a pile of dirt and stone as long as it is 
nothing but dirt and stone. 

We found William Tell at home all through 
Switzerland, and he gave us a cordial welcome 
into the life and wonders of his big little country, 
which is really the world in miniature. About 
twice the area of the state of Massachusetts, 
it contains about every form into which this 
old earth can twist itself, and in the "season" 
about every phase of human development — 
and undevelopment. The porch of one of the 
big hotels comes pretty near being a horizontal 
tower of Babel, and the Swiss themselves have 
to be linguistic gymnasts in order to get along 
with their conglomerate language. All of which 
makes it easy to find one's way through the 
country; the wayfaring man, though a fool, need 
not err therein, for no matter what one says or 
how he says it, some one is sure to understand. 

We came from Zurich to Lucerne by way 
of the Lake of Zug. It is a beautiful lake, 
a real picture of a lake, lying there so cozily 
among the hills, with the big mountains looking 
over their shoulders to peep into its mirror. 
It is such a satisfaction to find some things just 



202 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

right so that you do not have to say "if," and 
Zug is beyond criticism. And not the least 
delightful thing about it is its name. Why it 
is called "Zug" I do not know, unless it is 
because that is its name, — but why the name? 
In our country it would probably be "Johnson's 
Pond" or "The Sawmill Reser voir ," but "Zug" 
is a nomenclatural triumph. It is short, sen- 
tentious, easy to spell, and yet how it must 
appeal to the poet because of its fruitfulness 
in rhymes! 

All the time we were getting deeper and 
deeper into the heart of the real mountains. We 
caught glimpses of majestic peaks between 
smaller peaks, lost them again as we dashed 
into a tunnel, and when we came out at the 
other side we saw the same mountain made 
into a new one as we looked from a different 
angle. It is a rough country. Even the gods 
as they tramp up and down the earth must 
find the walking somewhat hubbly as they go 
through Switzerland, and the railroads must 
bore through more mountains than they climb 
over. And when we swung into Lucerne, and 
glanced about in every direction, we could 
only think that at last we were fenced in by 
the Almighty, and we were thankful that we 
could not get away. 



THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 



203 



There is a good deal of rivalry among the 
cities of Switzerland, each claiming greater at- 
tractions than any other, and it would seem 
that there is justice in the claim of all, for each 






1 * 1*- -4* << 



LUCERNE. 



has some characteristic beauty, some unique 
charm, some winning appeal, and a season is 
all too short to "do" this little land and do it 
justice. And yet it is safe to say that Lucerne 
may be taken as a type, and having seen 



204 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

Lucerne and its surroundings you have got at 
least the flavor of the whole country. 

We saw Lucerne. We were not long in 
getting at our sight-seeing after our arrival. A 
hasty lunch at our hotels and then we all 
gathered at the Glacier Garden to see the 
beginnings of things. We had been hustled 
about Europe to see antiquities which reached 
back a good many centuries, but up here on a 
hill back of the city there had been disclosed 
some traces of the times before the years were 
counted; so far away are these times that their 
records are mostly very dim, and reveal them- 
selves only to the student; but here is left a 
page of the world's history all written over 
with the mighty power and pen of the glacier. 
The page is of rock, and yet that glacial pen 
scratched the letters thirty feet deep and 
punctuated the message with mighty bowlders. 
And men had gathered there, most appro- 
priately, relics of the earlier human life, well 
over the edge of history, of that curious people 
the lake dwellers, who were struggling for a 
living on these same lakes beside which we had 
been riding that very day, so long ago that 
figures become meaningless. And as we looked 
at the implements they used, the pottery, the 
knives, the hatchets and other tools differing 



THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 205 

from ours only in the crudity of their construc- 
tion and the material of which they were made, 
we wondered if there was very much difference 
after all, for after all these thousands of years we 
prepare food and eat it and we make clothes 
and wear them, we build houses to live in, we 
learn a few things and miss a good many more, 
we love each other and fight each other, we live 
a little while and make a few more tools for our 
children to work with or throw away, and then 
we die. And that is just what those lake dwel- 
lers did. There must be something more to life 
than the hard " facts " we can enumerate. 

Just below the Glacier Garden is the Lion of 
Lucerne, one of the most extraordinary pieces 
of sculpture in the world. This great figure 
of the king of beasts, nearly thirty feet long, 
has been carved out of the solid rock. It is 
not a freak thing, but it is genuine in its artis- 
tic merit. It was conceived by a soldier, one 
of the survivors of the Swiss Guards whom it 
commemorates. The model was made by Thor- 
waldsen, the monument itself by Ahorn, and 
the question is, Who is the artist? The old 
question ever being renewed, where are we to 
place the credit for anything? Our human 
interests are so tangled up with each other, 
we are all so interdependent, the greatest lives 



206 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

stand upon the foundation of the smallest. 
A child utters an inarticulate cry for justice, 
and the listening minister writes a great sermon; 
a clod of a man bends above his hoe, and a 
painter makes an immortal picture; a primitive 
people found a great city, mixing the plaster 
for the walls with their blood, and centuries 
later a lecturer on their achievement becomes 
the idol of admiring audiences; a tramp steals 
a piece of bread and goes to jail, and an actor 
imitates him on the stage at three hundred 
dollars a night. Sometimes we are all artists — 
and also all clods. We sit before this majestic 
figure of the lion, wounded unto death and 
still majestic, and note the dainty vines and 
delicate flowers which creep up out of the rock 
to caress it. We study its reflection in the 
pool below and think how " the foolish things 
of the heart" glorify the harsh and cruel facts 
of war. And then we turn away from the 
fragments of antiquity, from the suggestions 
of war and its cruelty and the dreadful struggle 
of humanity to live, and look out over the blue 
waters of the lake to the green hills and the 
snow-capped mountains beyond, and feel that 
here God has written one of his poems of cre- 
ation, and life is not all prose. 

Many days could be spent in spying out 



THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 207 

the curious wonders and charming features of 
the city, and rich were the hours when, freed 
from the obligation of seeing certain things 
which were on the program, we wandered at 
our own sweet will along the Schweizerhof 
Quai, mingling with the multitudes from every 
nation on the face of the globe, listening to 
the music of excellent bands, or just sitting 
and looking out over the lake to the living 
mountains which were so sensitive to light and 
shadow that they smiled or frowned with each 
passing cloud. The water was alive with boats 
of every description, and if one had not the am- 
bition or strength to scale any of the heights 
which beckoned from the clouds, there was a 
great telescope with which he could circle the 
whole horizon and see even the people picking 
their way to the summits of Rigi and Pilatus. 
The city embraces the head of the lake 
with ever-lengthening arms, and extends far 
up on both sides of the Reuss, over which 
there are a number of fine bridges, two of 
which are of particular interest. The Kapell- 
bnicke, or Chapel Bridge, is quite unique; in- 
stead of crossing the river at right angles, as 
any ordinary bridge would do, it strays off 
up the stream a considerable distance to an 
old stone tower, then wanders on still farther 



208 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



up, until a good landing place is discovered, 
when it turns sharply to the shore. It is a 
very old bridge, dating back to the beginning 
of the fourteenth century, and it is easy to 
think that there must have remained a drop 
or two of the old lake dwellers' blood in the 




THE KAPELLBRUCKE. 



builders, which made them so averse to getting 
to the land when once they began to build. 
It is a narrow covered bridge of wood, and 
where the rafters form triangles in supporting 
the roof the space has been filled in with one 
hundred and twelve curious paintings, half of 
them depicting the life of the patron saint 
of the town and the other half scenes from the 



THE LAND OF WILLIAM TELL 209 

story of the Swiss Confederation. Going one 
way you can read biography, going the other, 
history. These pictures have grown very dim 
with age and dirt, and in the faint light which 
comes through narrow apertures it is impossible 
to judge of their merit. But there can be no 
question as to their curious interest ; and whoever 
walks twice across the bridge will have a lasting 
reason in the back of his neck for remembering 
them. The other bridge, Muhlenbrucke, lacks 
about a century of being as old, and makes only 
one bend in getting across the river. Its deco- 
rations, however, consist of thirty-four pictures 
by Holbein, showing "The Dance of Death." 
The new bridges are wide and straight and 
substantial, and the great tides of travel surge 
across them, eager to get somewhere by the 
quickest and easiest route. Only the leisurely 
and the sentimental wander through the old 
covered ways. There is so little time to do 
anything nowadays. We spend millions to cut a 
few hours off our journey and thus we cut out 
many of the best pictures which the great Artist 
of the universe has painted for our delectation. 
To "get there" is a glorious achievement, but 
to enjoy the getting there and to profit all along 
the way is a lesson antiquity tries hard to 
teach us, but we will not learn. 




CHAPTER XVIII 

ON TOP OF THE EARTH 

WHEN THE ANGELS HAD THE WORLD AT 
THEIR FEET 

|N a revolving globe, every one must 
be on top sometime, but this earth- 
globe is so big and so irregular in 
its surface that it is only once in 
a while that there are not greater heights be- 
yond and once in several whiles when we can 
have the sense of looking down on everything. 
As a matter of fact, no one ever gets to the 
real top of anything. But I am not looking for 
facts but for sensations, and having found a 
hump of earth from the top of which all the rest 
of the earth seems to be at my feet, I shall 
allow no devotee of the foot rule to rob me of 
my glorious sense of achievement. 

The first stage of the climb up the Rigi is 
made on a steamer from Lucerne, and is not 
difficult. With our trusty alpenstocks be- 
side us, we loll luxuriously in our deck chairs, 
with maps on our knees, and pick out from 
the clouds the conspicuous peaks. On the 

210 



ON TOP OF THE EARTH 211 

right rises Pilatus, the nearest big mountain 
neighbor to the city, and clothed with the 
majesty and mystery of ever-shifting clouds, 
behind which there is a fascinating legend con- 
nected with the name. It is said that Pilate 
after his crime in Palestine was filled with re- 
morse and committed suicide; his body was 
thrown into the Rhine and the Rhone and sev- 
eral other rivers and lakes, but none of them 
would endure it and each in turn became so tur- 
bulent that the body had to be removed, and 
finally it was placed in a small black-watered 
lake on the summit of this mountain, where it 
still remains quietly save when disturbed by hu- 
man presence, when it makes things lively in 
generating all sorts of weather excepting decent. 
So Pilatus acts as the weather bureau for that 
whole section of country and presses our own 
" Old Prob " pretty close for reliability. 

Hat Pilatus sinen Hut, 
Dann wird das Wetter gut; 
Tragter aber einen Degen, 
So gibt's wohl sicher, Regen. 

Which means, if Pilatus is capped with cloud 
you can look for fine weather, but if he wears 
his sword, look out for a soaking. 

Beyond the "weather bureau" are Burgen- 
stock, Stanserhorn and the Buocheserhorn and 



212 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

many other "horns" more or less exalted, 
while at the left rears the rugged form of the 
Rigi, the highest peak of this particular range 
and named "Queen of the Mountains/' and 
which was our goal. I can conceive of no 
more delightful way of climbing mountains 
than by steamer. We do not have to wait until 
we get there before beginning our enjoyment, 
for as we reached out from the Bay of Lucerne 



THE RIGI. 



into the greater lake there was unfolded be- 
fore us an ideal panorama, fulfilling all our 
youthful dreams of Switzerland. The lake it- 
self is like a great blue cross filling a wonderful 
valley a score of miles in length, with its two 
arms reaching up two smaller valleys. Right 
above us the sky was blue, while all around 
the horizon a light mist smoothed off all the 
rough corners and softened all the outline. 
There was the slight motion of the steamer 



ON TOP OF THE EARTH 213 

which we felt, but to our sight the great moun- 
tain seemed to be coming nearer and growing 
up higher and higher, until as we drew up to 
the little wharf at Vitznau it towered above 
us like a menace of conscience. 

It was here at Vitznau that we left the 
steamer and entered upon the second and more 
strenuous stage of our climb. Here we girded 
ourselves, as it were, for the steep ascent, and 
grasping our trusty alpenstocks firmly and 
drawing a long breath, we took our seats in 
the funny little cars of the Vitznau-Rigi 
cogged railway and started up. Climbing a 
mountain by railway is different from climbing 
by steamer; it has more of variety and there 
seems to be enough more of danger to give 
one several thrills, which we pay for and 
expect. Our train was no "Twentieth Century 
Limited"; its action was wholly dignified and 
it carried us through space at a rate never 
exceeding three miles an hour. It seemed a 
little curious to start up a mountain by going 
through a tunnel and then over a high bridge; 
but I have noticed that it always takes several 
mountains to make one, and we must either 
get over, around or through these before we 
can get at the real thing. But after these 
obstacles were passed we simply sat still and 



214 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

watched the earth fall away from us, while 
the horizon developed the quality of elasticity 
and stretched wider and wider until it seemed 
that if we continued far enough, the whole world 
would be revealed to us. And perhaps it is 
true that when we have at last risen high 
enough into the atmosphere of heaven we shall 
see all things as they are and know all things, 
and then realize what fools we have been all 
along the way. 

There are several stations on the way to the 
top. We knew when we had arrived at one, 
not because there was any sense of stopping, 
but because the earth below stopped falling 
away from us, and small boys and girls in pic- 
turesque costumes besought us to buy little 
bunches of edelweiss, the Alpine flower which 
so hides itself among the snowy crags that 
none but the natives can find it. It is a nov- 
elty rather than a beauty, like a bit of cotton 
deftly arranged in the form of a star on the 
end of a stick. But clustering about it are 
associations which glorify it and make it 
radiant with sentiment. 

At the Rigi-Kulm, the upper station, a few 
hundred feet from the summit, we left the train 
for the third stage of our climb, and once more 
grasping our trusty alpenstocks, we picked 



ON TOP OF THE EARTH 215 

our way up over a good path, until at last we 
stood upon the top of the earth. It is always 
good to achieve. No doubt those in older times 
who won their way to the top of this mountain 
by their own hard effort experienced some 
sensations denied to those of us who climbed 
by boat and rail, but we have no quarrel with 
them; sufficient unto the day are the con- 
veniences thereof. They came in their way 
and from their direction, and we by ours, and 
we both arrived. It may be so when we 
arrive, in the near or distant future, at those 
supernal heights of our heavenly hopes, that 
we shall be surprised to see some who started 
from a different place, came by a different 
road, used a different mode of conveyance — 
and possibly they will be equally surprised to 
see us. 

The mist and cloud which for three weeks 
had been hanging over the mountains, obscur- 
ing the views and disappointing the viewers, 
were lifted for us. For three hours the whole 
wide sweep of the horizon's unbroken circle 
was open to our admiring, even worshiping 
eyes, and really I think I have never seen a 
finer view, and I have seen many, if not most, 
of the views in our own Rocky Mountains and 
the Sierras. And yet the Rigi is not a high 



216 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

mountain; it is not half as high as Pikes Peak. 
But a view is more than simply a matter of 
altitude; it is the setting of the point of 
view. We were on the shore of an enormous 
ocean of frozen waves, and we looked away 
over the vast reach of the magnificent billows 
to where they broke in the titanic surf of 
the Bernese Oberland. So clear was the air 
that by pictures we could identify and call 
the roll of that stately company of mountain 
royalty, the Finsteraarhorn, the Mittelhorn, 
the Wetterhorn, the Jungfrau and innumer- 
able others. At our feet on one side curved 
the beautiful Lake of the Four Cantons, and 
on the other my old friend, the Lake of Zug. 
Whichever way we looked there was some- 
thing new to make keen an appetite which 
else must have been palled with excess of 
visual delight. 

We stopped looking at last, and bought 
postal cards and Alpine horns and foolish sil- 
ver trinkets and bits of wood carving, nothing 
in themselves, a waste of money no doubt, 
and yet I find months afterward I have but 
to look at one of the trinkets and it is my 
magic lamp or ring, only it needs not to be 
rubbed, even, to call up out of the depths of 
memory the Switzerland which is a precious 



ON TOP OF THE EARTH 217 

stone to which all the rest of Europe is but 
the setting. 

Near the top there is a fine large hotel, where 
we ate a good dinner, though counting that 
time lost which was spent indoors. And it 
was a loss to us, for while we ate, the clouds 
assembled and curtained the distant snow-clad 
heights, so that when we came out much of 
our vision had departed. 

For those of ambition and physical strength 
there is no need of using the railway in under- 
taking this small mountain, for there is a good 
footpath all the way and little danger either 
of accident or going astray, but in these days 
of hurry the saving of time is quite an item. 
Twelve of our party were fired with the ambi- 
tion to walk down the montain to Vitznau, a 
distance of about seven miles, and as the foot- 
path keeps close to the railroad track and 
reaches each station, where it would be possible 
to catch a train in case of need, they felt safe 
in making the attempt. An hour later we 
started, and at the second station we began to 
pick up those who had fallen by the way. We 
gathered in more at each succeeding stop, and 
when at last we rolled into the station at 
Vitznau we were met at the platform by the 
survivors of the tramp, and they were four 



218 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

young girls, with thin, high-heeled shoes, the 
soles of which had been worn through by the 
sharp gravel of the path; while the men and 
women who had started with them had come 
to the conclusion that the glory was not worth 
the effort — and the shoe leather. 

The ride back to Lucerne on the steamer 
through the twilight was like a benediction 
upon the day. We were all tired with excite- 
ment if not with physical effort, and to sit in 
peace while the shadows drew the mountains 
together about us, and look up to the heights 
from which we had come and recall the splen- 
dor of the vision which had been revealed to 
us, would have subdued spirits quite antago- 
nistic, but ours were willing. Another thing 
which made its impression upon us was the 
fact that, as a large group, this was the last 
journey of the "Angels" together, for early on 
the following morning we were to be scattered, 
every one to his own desire. And desire called 
some to further exploration of the mountains 
of Switzerland, some to Paris and Antwerp, 
to sail thence for home, and yet others to Italy. 
There were many good-byes to be said, and 
hopes universal that our paths should converge 
and bring us all together again on the shores 
of our native land. 



ON TOP OF THE EARTH 219 

I wish we might have kept together, to land 
an unbroken party at the port whence we had 
sailed nearly two months before, for in all my 
experience in traveling never have I seen a 
more congenial and happy party. Coming 
together as strangers on the Devonian, with no 
bond of union save some similarity in religious 
faith, there grew up companionships which 
ripened into enduring friendships. We came 
to know and to value each other, and I doubt 
not that the richest achievements of our long 
journey will be these friendships. 

Would it were possible to include in these 
records some accounts of the seeings and 
doings of the other flocks of "Angels." I wish 
it had been possible to have deserted the main 
body and gone with the sixty-five to Hungary 
and caught something of the uplift of the 
splendid meetings held there in connection 
with the four hundredth anniversary of the 
founding of our sister Church. It was only 
by the power of the will that we got away from 
those who were to drink yet deeper of the joys 
of Swiss scenery and life, and the pull on our 
heartstrings was strong to take us to Paris 
and Antwerp, but a stronger call came up from 
the south, where the mystic charm of Italy 
had been wooing me since childhood, and at the 



220 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



end of the land journey there would be a ship 
awaiting to give us the long and restful voyage 
through the Mediterranean, by Gibraltar and 
the Azores, across a long summer ocean, to 
our home. 




ON TOP OF THE EARTH. 




CHAPTER XIX 

THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 

THROUGH WHICH A GROUP OF ANGELS PASS 
TO DO ITALY 

ND so it was that a party of about 
a dozen chosen "Angels" left Lu- 
cerne in the early morning of what 
proved to be one of the hottest 
days of the summer, for the long flight to Milan, 
via the St. Gothard Tunnel route. The lake 
was alluring in the early morning light, and as 
we looked over its clear blue waters and sensed 
the joy and liberty and freshness of the steamer 
trip through the Lake of the Four Cantons to 
Fluelen, it seemed almost criminal to incarcerate 
ourselves in close railway carriages. But we 
were the slaves of time; our master commanded 
and we obeyed. But for the heat, it would have 
been willing obedience; for while the first stage 
of our journey by water, less than a quarter of 
it, would have had its delights, we should have 
missed, because of a night ride over the balance 
of the route, what proved to be one of the 
most interesting experiences of our whole tour. 

221 



222 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

I am often impressed with the kindness of 
necessity which we so persistently fight. The 
thing we are denied almost always gives place 
to something better, if we do not blind our 
eyes with foolish tears so that we cannot see it. 
Had we gone by boat we must have gone over 
the route of the previous day and have seen 
"the Queen of the Mountains" only from the 




AMONG THE CLOUDS. 

same point of view, and that is not fair to the 
mountain. 

Mountains are like people, they need to be 
looked at all around. They are full of moods; 
they have character; they are as responsive 
to conditions as a sensitive human face; they 
are so alive that it is no wonder that people 
who are much with them come to love them 
and confide in them and commune with them, 
and sometimes, when the mountains have been 
cruel and denied them good weather, or slain 
a loved one, they hate them. These great 
solid and stolid mountains are fickle often- 
times. They woo their lovers to the summit and 



THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 223 

then cast them down to death; they coax their 
worshipers along sunlit paths from home, then 
suddenly throw about them a chill blanket of 
mist and set the storm chasing them through 
the gloom to destruction, amid peals of thunder- 
ous laughter; they lay the bait of fairest flowers 
among the crags, and send the avalanche to 
crush the victims they decoy. Mountains 
smile upon you one minute and frown the 
next; they throw aside their garments with 
utter abandon, and an instant later veil their 
faces in excess of modesty; they cuddle ba- 
bies in their lap and shield them with their 
right hand, while with their left they smite 
the armies of a nation. They fence in brethren 
and fence out brothers. They tempt human 
insects to swarm upon them, and scatter them 
with the breath of the tempest. They sit 
enthroned in regal majesty, and e'en while we 
look they skip like young rams. There is 
always another side to a mountain, as there is 
to every question. 

By taking the train we saw the other side of 
the Rigi. From Lake Lucerne the slope is 
gradual enough so that the cogged railway can 
pick its way through much twisting and turning 
to the top; but when we looked from the window 
of our carriage at the other side, we saw cliffs 



224 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

rising sheer into the blue sky and leaning 
towards us until our spirits shrank, if our eyes 
were bold to face their brutal strength. But 
how little we seemed, and what an absurd thing 
was that foolish little train, with its snorting 
engine scampering with all its might from the 
foot of the mountain, for all the world like a 
scared rat from the foot of a man ; and to make 
the likeness still more real, it presently plunged 
head first into a tiny hole in the rocks and came 
out of the other side, to race through the trees 
and grass along the shore of the Lake of Zug. 

The people who name things in Switzer- 
land must have a large sense of humor; there 
is no other way to account for some of the 
cognomens. "Immensee" is the name of the 
town at which connection is made with the 
St. Gothard railway, but we look in vain for 
the huge place the name suggests, if it does 
not mean, only to discover the coziest and most 
charming little sort of a toy village. From 
here the road follows the shore of the lake to 
the southern end, then cuts 'cross country to 
the Lake of the Four Cantons, and follows that 
shore, affording the most wonderful views of 
mountains, to Altdorf, which was the scene 
of William Tell's heroism and is the beginning 
of the mountain division of this road which 



THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 225 

gives it fame as one of the scenic wonders of 
the world. 

Already we had been through more than a 
dozen short tunnels, at each one being obliged 
to close the windows with a jump to avoid being 
covered with dust, and to open them on emerg- 
ing, to prevent suffocation, for the heat was 
becoming almost intolerable. But verily we 
knew nothing of tunnels before, for presently 
we were being twisted in and out of the moun- 
tains in the most bewildering fashion. To give 
a notion of what we did, I must quote from 
an authorized description of the method used 
in climbing up to the level of the great tunnel 
which breaks through the range. " The railway 
enters the mountain side; it makes a bend in 
the turn-tunnel and comes to the surface again 
at a level of one hundred and fourteen feet 
higher. The line then crosses the Maienreuss 
for the first time and plunges into the hill, 
issues from it, follows the Reuss, then crosses 
the river and disappears in the mountain, fol- 
lowing the Wattinger loop-tunnel, on leaving 
which the railway recrosses the Reuss and 
Maienreuss a second time, enters another turn- 
tunnel, to emerge and cross the river a third 
time three hundred and thirty feet above the 
first bridge." That is, these turn-tunnels are 



226 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

made not to get through but over the mountains. 
They enter the earth and by making a long turn 
a mile or two in length come out again many 
feet above, so that in one instance we could look 
almost directly down and see, hundreds of feet 
below, two tracks we had come over. There 
was simply a series of spiral tunnels through 
which within a few hours we had risen more 
than twenty-two hundred feet above the level 
of the lake along the shores of which we had 
been speeding but a little time before. And 
yet we had not reached the great tunnel. 

Nothing more startling can be imagined than 
these flash-light pictures which were revealed 
to us as we flashed out into the open and then 
dived again into the darkness. And such 
pictures! We were right in the heart of the 
wildest and grandest of scenery, often poised 
as a bird in flight far above a rushing torrent 
of a mountain river, and yet always and always 
there were the greater heights beyond, capped 
with the splendor of eternal snows, or streaked 
with the frozen torrent of the glacier. By the 
time we had reached Goschenen, the northern 
entrance to the greatest bore on earth, we 
were fully convinced that tunnels are justly 
called bores, for with the opening and shutting 
of windows, and the disappointment at the 



THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 227 

cutting off so abruptly of such splendors of 
scenery, we were so far exhausted that we 
rather welcomed the nine and a quarter miles 
and twenty minutes of darkness of the great 
tunnel itself. 

There is something thrilling in being actually 
in the heart of a great mountain as we were. 
We were over three thousand feet above sea 
level, and yet a thousand feet above us was 
the village of Andermatt, not simply higher, 
but right over our head, and at another point 
the Lake of Sella was three thousand feet above 
us. We were over half a mile high and yet 
over a half mile underground. We thought we 
should suffocate, but we did not. The reality 
was not half so bad as thinking about it. It 
was like most of the experiences of life. 

And when we came out into the open again, 
having passed from German Switzerland to 
Italian Switzerland, there was an exhilaration 
in the thought that the mountain fastness was 
conquered; of course to others had been the 
fighting, to us the victory. Far below us lay 
the enticing beauties of the Italian lakes, and 
villas and vineyards and olive orchards, and 
history and poetry and art, and poverty and 
ignorance and sin, and churches and palaces, 
of course miles and miles beyond our sight; 



228 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

and yet we saw them all in anticipation as we 
began to loop the loop down from the heights 
we had scaled. For it took nearly as many 
tunnels to get us down as it had taken to get 
us up, but after the longest tunnel in the world 
had been passed the others were but passing 
irritations. 

It is curious how humanity, being anywhere 
on the face of this fair earth, immediately wants 
to get somewhere else, and the greater the 
difficulty in its way the more is its desire to 
get there. The Swiss seem to have a perfect 
passion for boring holes in these mountains. 
Money and human lives do not seem to count 
for much if they can only get a hole in the 
fence with which their country is surrounded, 
really not so much that they may get out as 
that others may get in. The Swiss are a home- 
loving people; they do not scatter over the 
whole earth as do other nationalities, but they 
have found that the tourist is about the best 
crop they can raise, and they know that every 
time they bore a hole in one of their big hills 
lots of people will come to crawl through it. 
We crawled through, and I am sure it was 
worth the perspiration and the dust. 

It was pretty good coasting all the way down 
to the Italian lakes, and there is no flat 



THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 229 

monotony after we get there. Though the 
mountains are not so high and so fierce and 
rugged as those about Lucerne, they were still 
with us when we reached the Lake of Como and 
made a fitting setting for one of the most 
exquisite bits of water scenery I have ever 
looked upon. It is not quite like anything 
else, it is just "Como," and any one who has 
ever looked upon it agrees that it has a charm 
all its own. I believe the waters are a little 
bluer, the hills a little more snugly placed; 
the shores are carpeted with orchards and 
vineyards reaching well up the heights, and 
among the clumps of trees there are the most 
artistic villas and castles, with whole villages 
which seem to have been placed just right by 
some great artist, and over the whole scene 
hung low the Italian sky, of which we had read 
and dreamed but did not before believe was real. 
Hardly had we entered Italian territory 
before we became conscious of an ever-increas- 
ing number of churches, which seemed to have 
been sown broadcast over the country, for they 
were set here and there and everywhere with 
absolutely no relation to the homes of the 
people. Wherever there was a particularly 
inaccessible piece of rock big enough to hold 
a church and conspicuous enough to be seen, 



230 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

there would one be found, though there was 
not a human habitation in sight for miles. 
Sometimes connected with the churches would 
be little groups of buildings, possibly the homes 
of those who ministered, and the number and 
location of these places of worship revealed, 
on the very threshold of Italy, that we were 
in a new religious world, or a world of religion 
different from any we had known, for it was 
at once evident that the religious motive of 
these people was entirely apart from the needs 
of man; it was one gigantic and pathetic cry 
unto God. Whoever had enough of goods to 
build and endow a church so that masses might 
be said for his soul, built it as great as he could, 
and so endowed it that coming generations 
should spend their time in keeping him from 
torments which no doubt he richly deserved. 
Here was something that in essence violated 
all our conceptions of the religion which Christ 
brought to the earth for human service. Here 
was the religion whose purpose was to inspire 
to self-sacrifice, commandeered into the service 
of self-seeking. For while these innumerable 
churches represented uncounted millions of 
dollars which had been sacrificed in their 
building, the motive of their building was not 
altruistic in any sense; it was to pay some vow 



THE GREATEST BORE ON EARTH 231 

to some saint as a penance or a bid, so it did 
not matter whether or not it ever came in 
touch with human life. So we find in Italy 
to-day more churches, more services of religion, 
and less religion than in any other place on the 
face of the earth. That is, from our stand- 
point. Modern life has come to see the irrec- 
oncilable antagonism between a million-dollar 
cathedral and the poverty and sin and suffering 
and ignorance which sit upon its marble steps. 
Yet among other things we have come to 
see these great cathedrals, and in the twilight 
of a long and weary day, and yet a day of rare 
experiences, we made our first goal on Italian 
soil, — the city of Milan. 





CHAPTER XX 

MILANESE 

ONE LONE ANGEL WISHES HE HAD STUDIED 

ESPERANTO, BUT ALL FIND MUCH TO 

INTEREST IN MILAN 

|HE record of what we did and saw 
in the various Italian cities would 
make a large volume and yet it 
must be condensed into what is but 
a postscript to this already too long series of 
chapters. Milan is a treasure-chamber and 
Milanesian life is a mine full of pay-dirt. There 
is no doubt about the dirt, but it is something 
of an achievement to transmute it into gold. 

My first experience was in trying to do a 
bit of shopping in Italian. During our rapid 
journeying I had somewhere missed connection 
with my laundry and found myself on my intro- 
duction to Italy shy of a "slumber robe." 
But it seemed such a trifling matter to run out 
to one of the big stores and supply myself that 
I did not give an anxious thought to possible 
difficulties. The clerk at the hotel, who spoke 
good English, told me where to find the "shop- 

232 



MILANESE 233 

ping district," and with my phrase-book I 
started on my quest. Stores from the outside 
look pretty much the same the world over, and 
it was easy to find a furnishing place. At 
the door I lingered to locate what I wanted in 
the phrase-book, but was surprised to find that 
in all that work there was no word in Italian 
corresponding to "nightshirt." Now I have 
no doubt that this great and generally civi- 
lized nation makes use of this important piece 
of wearing apparel, but the maker of my 
book had thoughtlessly omitted it, and I saw 
at once that I must resort to the sign language. 
I entered the store and was greeted by a "tall, 
dark man" with much outward courtesy, but 
he looked so much like the pictures of the 
banditti that it nearly took my nerve, and I 
wandered back and forth, he following in close 
pursuit, hoping I could locate the object of 
my search. 'Twas all in vain. I could see 
everything else in the way of human raiment 
but nothing that even approximated a night- 
shirt. Then I resorted to signs. First I 
thought I would impress him with the idea of 
sleep, and after making a few passes in the air 
to fix his attention, I slowly closed my eyes 
and emitted a very gentle and musical snore. 
Before I could get my eyes fully open he was 



234 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

speeding to another part of the store and 
presently returned with joy beaming from every 
pore and opened before me a cute little box 
containing half a dozen tiny hemstitched 
handkerchiefs. They were nice handkerchiefs, 
and useful enough in their own place, but rather 
inadequate for a nightshirt. So I shook my 
head and came away, leaving him sorrowful. 

I next found a big department store and 
thought I might locate something there, but 
there was nothing in sight, and so, selecting 
the least dangerous looking of the " sales- 
ladies/' I tried to make my wants known. 
Here I did not want to employ the same sign 
and so I bent my head over gracefully sideways 
upon my two hands and closed my eyes. She 
was an intelligent young person; intelligence 
fairly radiated from her features as she flew 
to another counter and came back with a 
beautifully embroidered and beribboned sofa 
pillow. I should have liked to buy it, for 
she was so very charming, but one cannot 
wear a sofa pillow. And so I shook my head 
and tried to indicate that my sleep involved 
the whole body and not simply the head. 
Again she was intelligent and brought me, with 
a most charming smile, a long woven couch- 
cover with much fringe about the edges and 



MILANESE 235 

of as many colors as Joseph's coat. Then I 
gave it up and returned to the hotel, and, find- 
ing our very gentlemanly guide, who was an 
English-speaking Italian, I explained what I 
wanted and asked him to go out and secure 
it regardless of expense. On his return the 
package was sent to my room and I was free 
of care. But when, late at night, I undid the 
bundle, there was revealed a garment which 
was undoubtedly intended as a sleeping robe, 
but it was different from what I expected. It 
was decollete to a most shocking extent; all. 
around the neck there was the daintiest of lace; 
the absurd little sleeves only came to the elbow, 
and they too were finished with lace. The 
upper part of the thing had a sort of frieze of 
embroidery which was mostly holes, through 
which there was run a bit of blue ribbon, and 
to end it all, around the bottom was a dado of 
flounces, which, designedly or not, served as 
an effective hobble. In addition the whole 
thing was what is called, I believe, so " sheer" 
that it was more like a dream than a reality. 
I examined it with care and painful interest, 
but I did not wear it; I hung it as far back 
as possible in the closet of the room, and so 
far as I know, it is there yet, and I had better 
luck shopping in Venice. 



236 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

We found one most sensible man in Milan; 
he has the quality of adaptability developed 
to the highest degree. The weather in the 
city was intensely hot and we resorted to every 
possible device to be comfortable, but there 
is only one man there who has achieved a real 
success in meeting the climatic demands, and 
that is one Saint Bartholomew. He is standing 
away up near the altar in the big cathedral and 
has been standing there for several hundreds 
of years. He is rather shocking at first sight, 
for we found him with a pleased expression on 
his face and carrying his skin over his shoulder. 
Most people had taken off about everything 
the law allowed, but Brother Bartholomew, 
with the help of an ancient sculptor, had really 
had his skin removed and was carrying it 
about thrown carelessly across his shoulders. 
He was not pretty to look at, but that day he 
certainly looked comfortable, and we honestly 
envied him. 

The great wonder in Milan is what men have 
done with marble, and this statue is but an 
exaggerated specimen. For more than a thou- 
sand years these people have been making the 
most wonderful lace with stubborn marble for 
its thread. One needs but to get far enough 
away from the cathedral to find this thought 



MILANESE 



237 



realized; from the opposite extreme of the 
Plaza, all thought of weight and solidity dis- 
appears, and its lines seem to be traced in the 
most delicate filament; it rises from the earth 
not as a stable pile of stone, but as an effer- 
vescent foam, from the crest of which it would 




THE CATHEDRAL. 



not surprise one to see a passing wind catch a 
globe of it and roll it across the pavements as 
from the crest of an ocean wave the tempest 
clips a bit to whirl along the sands. And yet 
how secure it is! Quite as much if not more 



238 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

than any other European cathedral this one 
in Milan is well set. Others try to outdo each 
other in piercing the clouds, but so wide is this 
foundation that, though the building is really 
glorious in its height, it does not impress the 
onlooker in that way so much as in the marvel 
of its detail. Two thousand statues are here 
enlisted for ornamentation and support and 
the plan calls for fifteen hundred more before 
it is complete. There is hardly a line in the 
great building which is not created with the 
lines of the human form. Here men have 
toiled for a lifetime to complete one or two 
figures in marble of some one more or less 
distinguished in the religious life of the place 
and perhaps witnessed their placement and 
died happy in the thought of achievement, 
when as a matter of fact their work was im- 
mediately lost in the vast multitude of other 
figures which are but congested here. I can 
conceive of no place in which a statue, however 
great it be, might be so thoroughly lost as in this 
multitude. A far better chance of reaching 
distinction have those that were buried at 
Pompeii and Herculaneum than those buried 
in the vast hosts which make and adorn this 
splendid pile. 
Yet there is a suggestion here which clings. 



MILANESE 239 

As these men work to build their product into 
the great whole, where the individual achieve- 
ment is lost, so do we all build our part in this 
greater life, and it too is lost to sight of men 
and yet in the completed creation but serves to 
make the infinite plan more nearly perfect in its 
symmetry and beauty. Nothing is lost which 
hath the vitality of truth, though to our weak 
human eyes it may never appear apart from 
the great whole. And we do not know what 
an important place our little creation may have 
in the whole, until we fail, and then appears 
the blot upon the whole. There is a statue 
in this wonderful cathedral, made by an ob- 
scure artist, whose name even has long since 
been forgotten and his work is passed by with- 
out a thought by the procession of hundreds 
of thousands whose feet are wearing away the 
marble floors, but if some night a thief were 
to select and carry away that figure, instantly 
all eyes would be turned upon the place where 
it was. So perfectly has it blended in the per- 
fect whole, it could not be seen until it was 
taken away. And so it shall be with our poor 
little handiwork when in the fullness of time 
its importance shall be revealed. In this great 
temple of God's creation we are all statues 
filling some little niche, supporting some great 



240 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

arch at which the world wonders, or capping 
some splendid corner, it matters not what or 
where, in the infinite plan, more nearly perfect 
than the one being evolved in the Milan Cathe- 
dral; there are no mistakes; there are none so 
little as not to be vital, none so great as to 
take unto themselves the glory. 

We spent hours in this marvelous building 
and under the direction of a voluble guide 
gathered far more information than we shall 
ever be able to digest. We brought away only 
impressions which are far more gratifying than 
figures for home consumption. It is not easy 
to think of the place as old when it is so far 
from completion, and when, after toiling up 
the long stairs to the roof, we find a colony of 
people and animals actually living there, work- 
ing out their little lives in making this great 
thing live. And it seemed that one must spend 
a lifetime there before he could begin to under- 
stand even the alphabet of the great story 
being wrought into marble. This particular 
building was begun nearly six hundred years 
ago, and though the plans have been modified 
in the passing centuries, as different artists 
tried to place their own personal impressions 
upon it, it has developed along consistent lines 
of gothic architecture and is to-day the largest 



MILANESE 241 

gothic church in the world, and if one could 
get through the mass of ornamentation, it 
would be one of the most impressive interiors. 
But really it requires a distinct act of the will 
to see it in any of its detail, there is so much of 
it; but when one can concentrate his attention 
on any one feature, be it statue or sweep arch, 
he will be rewarded ; this however is a work of 
months or years, while to get aside and take 
it as a composite, something of the harmony of 
a great piece of music is felt. Just let your- 
self go, forget' the surroundings, forget the 
wretchedness of its history, shut out the sounds 
of a rushing traffic and screen off the religion 
with whose forms you can have no sympathy, 
curb the demands of your reason, and then 

'Tis only in the land of fairy dreams 
Such marble temples rise, bright in the gleams 
Of golden sunshine. Truth here repeats 
What fancy oft has pictured forth in sleep. 

There are eighty churches in Milan, many of 
them worth seeing, but we saw only a few. 
Instinctively we turned to Santa Maria Delia 
Grazie, not to see the church, or the pictures 
within, of which there are some of value, but 
to see in the Refectory what is probably the 
best-known picture in the world, "The Last 



242 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

Supper/' by Leonardo da Vinci. It is but a 
wreck of a picture, painted directly upon the 
wall of the building, nearly five hundred years 
ago, and the wall was not equal to the responsi- 
bility, and so, through dampness and lack of 
care, there is left but a faint trace of its former 
glory. And yet this trace is sufficient to thrill 
one with a new sense of the reality of the Gospel 
story. Every one has seen some of the many 
reproductions of this work, so it is only neces- 
sary to say that the incident selected to be thus 
perpetuated is when Jesus says to his disciples, 
"Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall 
betray me." It is a marvelous study in ex- 
pression, and though the picture has so often 
been copied, it seems that no one has been 
able to catch its spirit; as in trying to picture 
life the chief element is always left out, so this 
picture seems to have that marvelous quality 
which none may take away. 

I was greatly impressed with the almost 
miraculous preservation of the painting through 
all these centuries. Placed on a wall that itself 
was subject to decay, and then, still more 
dangerous to its welfare, being in the care often- 
times of the wholly unappreciative, and with 
the waves of conquering armies sweeping over 
the city, seeking destruction and loot, and 



MILANESE 243 

especially the moment of greatest crisis, when 
Napoleon's soldiers stabled their horses in this 
room and in order to make easy egress cut a 
great opening through the wall, the top of which 
cut away the lower portion of the table, it is 
marvelous that it has been preserved, and all 
may count themselves fortunate who have the 
privilege of standing in reverence before the 
original, or even what there is left of it. There 
is a great statue of Leonardo da Vinci in 
Milan; it too is a fine work of art, and it would 
be surprising if the city did not honor itself in 
such an attempt to honor its greatest man. 
But the name and fame of this painter do not 
need statues, for he made his own monument 
when he conceived and executed this picture 
which connected him with the life of the 
Eternal. How many kings have risen and 
fallen, how many great church officials have 
ruled from their chair of state! But they are 
gone into the land of forgetfulness, while all 
over the world childhood and age pause before 
the picture and, with the Master, eat the bread 
of remembrance. 

The time was altogether too short in the 
galleries, for we found some of the best of the 
Old Masters to claim our attention, but we 
found too, as we had in other places, that we 



244 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

were confused by the abundance of greatness, 
so that we could bring away little in the way 
of appreciation of specific things. To see 
galleries which are worth while, one needs 
leisure, the leisure of weeks where we had days, 
and yet I fancy that having spent weeks, we 
should have come away quite as unsatisfied 
as we did with days, for pictures which have 
stood the test of centuries because they were 
living things, are so like people, whom we 
have to know in all lights and shadows, and 
in all moods of our own, before we really 
know them. 

We drove about the whole city, to the Royal 
Palace, the Library and other public buildings, 
but particularly to see the people. I confess 
that we forgot it was Sunday as we were sight- 
seeing, for there was nothing in the attitude 
or manner of the people to indicate a day of 
rest and worship. Within the churches there 
were elaborate services going on before a 
handful of worshipers, mostly women, while 
all about strayed the curiosity seekers, not to 
disturb, for in these great buildings and where 
the service is not directed towards the people, 
it matters little who come and go. 

A strange land to us, but no more strange 
than ours to them. We pity them not more 



MILANESE 



245 



than they pity us. We would save them and 
make them happy; they are sorry that we know 
not happiness. From our modern civilization 
we come to dig up a few roots of the civilization 
which was before our world began. 





CHAPTER XXI 

ON THE RIALTO 

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES WHICH BEFELL AN 

ANGEL UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF 

LAUNCELOT GOBBO 

IOMING from Milan to Venice we 
found one of the most delightful 
stages of our journey through Lom- 
bardy, where, much to our surprise, 
we discovered the Lombardy poplar really is 
at home, lifting its verdant spire here and 
there as from a cathedral of emerald. So 
many things in this life carry deception in their 
names, as for instance the Irish potato, which 
having its origin in America, had to bring the 
whole Irish nation over to justify its name. 
But more novel to us were the miles and miles 
of mulberry orchards through which we passed, 
the leaves thereof being for the feeding of the 
silkworm, which, in turn, makes the great 
Italian silk industry, which, next to the tour- 
ist, is probably the greatest national financial 
resource. We came through Padua, but did 
not stop long enough to find the office of that 

246 



ON THE RIALTO 



247 



"learned Doctor of the Law, Bellario," who 
connived with Portia for the downfall of Shy- 
lock at the court in Venice; he has probably 
moved before this time. 

But after passing Padua the grip of Venice 
was upon us, and as we struck out over the 
long salt meadows and across "the longest 




VENICE. 



bridge in the world," and there on the horizon, 
low down, showed the irregular sky line of the 
city, I was reminded of the approach to Atlantic 
City, N. J., when, just at sunset, we near that 
famous modern resort. But it was only a 
suggestion and was impressed upon my mind 
because after that moment we literally de- 
parted from this base world and entered into 



248 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the realm of fairyland and dreams, where 
nothing is like anything ever seen or done 
before, where all our straight-line standards 
become wabbly, realities are dissolved in mist 
and the unexpected becomes the expected. 
Venice is a stupendous grab bag of surprises; 
we thrust our hands in without the slightest 
notion of what we shall get, being sure of only 
one thing, — that there is a prize in every 
package. 

We came out from the station, following the 
porters with our luggage, to find ourselves 
right on the shore of the Grand Canal. When 
you arrive in Venice you are there; you do not 
have to take some other sort of a conveyance 
to reach what you have come to see, for stand- 
ing there in the doorway of the railroad 
station, real Venice is at your feet; the canal 
bordered with its palaces and churches and 
its surface literally covered with an immense 
fleet of gondolas, and poised upright on the 
stern of each, the graceful gondolier, scarce 
moving his hands, but making his long boat 
glide here and there, dodging in and out among 
the hundreds of others, with a skill that seems 
almost diabolical in its keenness. 

But we could not stand on the outside and 
look at this city of dreams; we must plunge 



ON THE RIALTO 249 

into the midst of it, for our guide was calling 
us to take our places in a gondola. Already 
our luggage was on board another, and was 
speeding away down the canal, and in a moment 
we too were apportioned four to each boat, 
and to an accompaniment of more or less 
musical cries, were extricated from the mass 
of wriggling black boats which seemed almost 
serpentine in the sinuosity of their movements, 
and were off to our hotel. This gondola was 
our omnibus, or our carriage, our baggage 
wagon, our furniture van, and had we been 
fortunate enough to have died there, would 
have been our hearse. There are no horses, 
no automobiles, no other means of conveyance 
than these gondolas, save that now some 
sacrilegious dogs have started a line of little 
steamboats to ply upon the Grand Canal, but 
thank fortune, they cannot go through the 
little narrow canals which wind and wind into 
the deeper mysteries and delights of old Venice. 
We followed the Grand Canal perhaps a 
third of its length and then turned suddenly 
to the left, through a little opening scarcely 
wide enough for two boats to pass, and from 
this into another, and so on and on, until our 
minds were as bewildered as in a crystal maze, 
for three-quarters of an hour, then suddenly 



250 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

we burst forth into the Grand Lagoon, almost 
in front of the Doge's Palace, and were placed 
alongside of the steps of the Hotel Danieli, once 
the famous old palace of Nani Mocenigo, which 
was to be our home during our stay. 

We could barely wait to finish our dinner, 
good as it was and hungry as we were, before 
getting out of doors into the midst of what 
seemed to us a veritable carnival of pleasure, 
and yet as we learned was but the ordinary 
life of the city in the off season. The hotel 
adjoins the Doge's Palace and the old prison, 
between which hangs the famous Bridge of 
Sighs. Along the Rivi degli Schiavoni — the 
wide footway following the water to the 
Piazza San Marco — we joined the slowly 
moving procession, picking our way among the 
little tables and chairs which push out from 
the cafes to the very edge of the water. Music 
was everywhere and drinking and eating seemed 
to be the only object of life. Excepting for a 
few gondolas loaded with produce, moving 
along the canal, there was no sign of anything 
having a serious import in life. Around the 
great Piazza of San Marco the stores were all 
aglow with light and seemed in the flush of 
business, and yet among them all there was 
nothing more serious to sell and buy than 



ON THE RIALTO 251 

pictures and laces, and watches and jewelry, 
and more things to eat and more things to 
drink, and through it all moved the multitude, 
to feed the lust of the eye and ear, but so far 
as could be seen, not to buy. We saw and 
wondered, and wondered at what we saw. 
How did they live? What did they live for? 
How were they to keep it up? Who would 
pay the bill? And yet never, excepting among 
the old slaves of our own South, have I seen 
such universal happiness and freedom from 
care, — a race untouched with responsibility. 

Yet what has this race done? It was late 
at night, nearly twenty-three o'clock as they 
measure time in Venice, when we started for 
bed. I say started, for I know not how many 
got there. As for myself, I sat at my window 
looking out over the waters of the Grand 
Canal and thinking of the palaces and towers 
and massive structures these people who seem 
so free from care had set up here on these bits 
of sand, which they must first fence in from the 
sea. Greater and greater grew my wonder as 
I thought how, more than a thousand years 
before, away back in the ages which were dark, 
the light of genius was burning here in the 
hearts and minds of these careless folk, and 
they were creating an art and literature and 



252 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

a city towards which the feet of a new world 
should turn. 

I was roused from my musing by the open 
window by a strange call which made its way 
to my ears through the singing and the laughter 
in the cafe below. It came again, seemingly 
from off the Grand Canal, and was probably 
a call from one of the gondoliers, but it seemed 
familiar, and I listened to catch it more clearly, 
and it came: 

"Sola, sola! wo, ha, ho! sola, sola! " 

And then I remembered having heard it 
on the stage in Philadelphia, long ago, when 
Henry Irving and Miss Terry were playing 
the "Merchant of Venice/' and I knew that 
out there in the night Launcelot Gobbo was 
calling me. I caught my hat and hurried out 
to the bank of the canal, just in time to hear 
again the call and to locate it with the gondo- 
lier of a shadowy boat moving slowly by. 
I whistled and caught his attention and he 
drew up to the steps. He was a trim-looking 
youngster, with rather a flashy costume, and 
no end of assurance as he accosted me in good 
English: "I pray you, sir, what wouldst thou?" 

I was not greatly astonished, because I had 
already recognized him, and so I said as I took 
a seat in the gondola, " Launcelot Gobbo, I 



ON THE RIALTO 253 

would to the Rialto go, and see your old master, 
Shylock." 

Without an instant's hesitation he pushed off 
and sent his gondola spinning along the Grand 
Canal, past the gardens of the palace, the 
Palazzo Guistiniani, where Wagner wrote his 
"Tristan and Isolde/' past palaces innumerable, 
the names of which he told but which I have 
forgotten, for I was interested in getting him 
to talk of himself, and finally he told me that 
he was a direct descendant of the original 
Launcelot, and that through all these centuries 
his people had been gondoliers and had kept 
their own peculiar cry, and that once a year, 
when the moon was right, they could take a 
passenger to the Rialto, where old Shylock 
would appear, and I was the fortunate one. 
And then he would speak no more of himself, 
but became the commonplace guide, telling 
me of palaces and their history and the works 
of art they contained, until we reached the 
bridge of the Rialto, where he set me ashore, 
saying he would return for me at exactly half 
past twenty-four o'clock, and he slipped away in 
the darkness. 

I knew not where I was excepting that there, 
swung across the canal, was the familiar Rialto 
bridge, which marks the center of that part 



254 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



of the old city which was known as the Rialto, 
or "Exchange," as we should call it. I knew 
not where to go or what to do, so sat down upon 
the steps leading to the landing and glanced 
about, and as I did so it seemed that there were 
people moving about thepiazzetta, and presently 




THE RIALTO BRIDGE. 

they took clearer form, and I could easily 
recognize, having seen them on the stage in 
Philadelphia and Boston, Antonio and Bas- 
sanio and Gratiano and Salanio and Salarino 
and Lorenzo and a lot of others who had no 
names. And then I began to feel that I was 
being deluded, and so pinched myself and stood 



ON THE RIALTO 255 

up and turned around, and when I looked 
again they were all gone. But looking across 
the steps at the capstone on the other side, 
there sat a withered-up, gray-haired and 
bearded old man, whose knotted hands were 
clenched together with a grasp like that of 
death. I nearly started from my seat, and then 
I recognized the old Jew, Shylock. I remember 
at the time that I did not wonder how he got 
there; it seemed self-evident that he must have 
come up from the water, and so I sat and 
looked at him until I found my nerve, and then 
I asked, "Art thou Shylock, the Jew, who was 
condemned in the court of Venice?" In a 
voice weak and yet distinct he answered, "I 
am." And then I said, "How came you here 
so many long centuries after you should have 
finished your career on earth?" And then he 
told me the story, running something like this, 
translated into modern speech. 

" You will recall the disaster which came 
upon me and my house, as told fairly well by 
that Englishman, Shakespeare, when the great 
injustice was done me by the court of Venice 
and I was robbed of both my goods and my 
opportunity. Why, had justice been done me 
I should have had ownership of every part of 
this great city long before this time. Already 



256 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

I had my eye on universal possession, when, 
owning everything, I should administer it for 
the general good, but there was a man named 
Antonio, also a rich man, who stood in my way, 
and he must be removed, and that was why 
I wanted to kill him, not, as every one said, be- 
cause he was a Christian; what care I for that? 
not because he called me dog and spit upon me; 
what do I care for that? but because he stood 
in my way of universal possession. You will 
recall what I say in Act III, scene 1, "I will 
have the heart of him, if he forfeit, for were 
he out of Venice, I can make what merchan- 
dise I will." And so I sought to kill him under 
the law. Then came that woman — since Adam 
it has ever been a woman — disguised as a 
learned Doctor of the Law and tricked us all 
with her words, and made me a pauper, and 
there was naught for me to do save throw 
myself into the sea and die. But because of 
my great benevolent thought of the good of 
man when I possessed all things, it is the 
pleasure of the gods to allow me to come up 
once a year and sit here and tell my story to 
whomsoever will listen, till I see coming over 
the bridge yonder that treacherous Portia, 
when I must go back for another year to sleep 
beneath the dark waters." 



ON THE EIALTO 257 

He paused, and with eagerness I asked as to 
what he meant by his great benevolent pur- 
pose of owning everything and then adminis- 
tering all; what would the people say to that? 
He looked at me with pity, and then he said: 
'Yes, I should have owned everything, houses, 
lands, boats and jewels and food and clothing, 
and having everything, I could apportion it 
so that all would have enough and none would 
have too much. But alas, as you say, the 
people would object. They killed me, an 
angel of benevolence, and then allowed a 
new and greater Shylock, one hard, cold 
and unfeeling one which hath no personality 
and no heart, to do exactly what they denied 
me. He has a new name, I believe, in these 
days, and is called "Trust" or "Corporation," 
but his purpose is like mine, just to own 
everything in all this world, and to adminis- 
ter it, not as I would have done, for the 
good of man, but for his own selfish ends. 
And behold, he destroys everything which 
gets in his way; human hearts are but to 
make the pavements over which he stalks, 
and he has taken your cities and your streets, 
he lights your houses, he brings you every 
drop of water you drink, he clothes and 
feeds you, and carries you all over the world 



258 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

in what you call railroads, and all for what you 
pay him. He builds great theaters in which 
great actors enact my life, that the world may 
point the finger of hate and scorn at me, and 
forget the new Shylock who grips them all in 
a hand of steel. Alas, poor deluded race, to 
howl at the puppet Shylock, while the new and 
real Shylock takes pound of flesh and blood 
and all!" 

"But," I cried, "Shylock, you are not fair; 
you do not know the new conditions; you — " 

Shylock gave a cry of horror, and grasp- 
ing his long white beard with one hand, with 
the other he pointed towards the bridge and 
shrieked, "See, she comes, Portia!" 

I followed the direction of his finger and saw 
no one, and turned back to him; but he was 
gone, and there were but a few bubbles on the 
surface of the Grand Canal where he had prob- 
ably gone down — or it may be they were made 
by the oar of Launcelot Gobbo as he brought 
his gondola up to the steps and invited me to 
a seat in the bow. 

Launcelot did not take me home by the 
Grand Canal, but through about every dark 
and dismal passage in the whole city, and all 
the way he would speak no further word. I 
sat patiently for what seemed hours, knowing 



ON THE RIALTO 259 

I was in his control, but at last he brought me 
near to the landing of the hotel and demanded 
three thousand ducats before he would let me 
land. It was a beastly outrage, but it was so 
late, and rather than to have a scene I paid 
him and went quickly to my room and to bed. 

At the breakfast table the next morning I 
told my adventures in some detail, and there 
was one minister there and he a Liberal, with 
a supposedly open mind, who said quite frankly 
he did not believe it. But I said to him, "You 
just wait till we get out in our gondolas to-day; 
I will show you the canal, and the bridge, and 
the stone steps, and even a long black gondola, 
with a tall dark young man wielding the oar, 
and furthermore, when we get back to America, 
I will show you in Act V, scene 1, of the ' Mer- 
chant of Venice,' the call of Launcelot Gobbo ? 
'Sola, sola! wo, ha, ho! sola, sola!' " 

What more could I do? 




:oc^|»o«=^ 




CHAPTER XXII 

ROUND ABOUT VENICE 

DEMOCRATIC ANGELS IN THE PALACES OF 
PRINCES 

|IVING in a palace was a novelty to 
most of us, and brought into sharp 
contrast with the commonplace 
wooden house of New England, its 
peculiar features were deeply impressed upon 
our minds. Even in sleep our dreams had 
something of a royal purple tint, and if we did 
forget for a time, when in the morning, as we 
arose and missing the rug, we landed our bare 
feet on the cold stone floor, we were instantly 
recalled to our exalted station, and felt some 
of the exhilaration of royalty. For actual 
home comforts commend me, I pray you, to 
the good old-fashioned, Yankee farmhouse, 
where if we froze to death it was no more than 
we expected, and this was sure not to happen 
in the middle of August. 

There are things about these old palaces 
which are of more than passing interest, — the 
rooms with their lofty ceilings, the walls of 

260 



ROUND ABOUT VENICE 261 

pure white or of fading tint and fresco, often 
adorned with pictures of more or less value, 
and the great halls, none of which are so poor 
as not to have some statues by way of decora- 
tion and about which are set curious pieces 
of furniture dating back anywhere in the 
centuries. A hundred years, more or less, 
seems to stand for so little here. In our 
country anything one hundred years old im- 
mediately claims our respect as an antique 
of real worth, but here in Venice anything less 
than four hundred years old is deemed almost 
frivolous. 

If we could only know! I wandered about 
an antique shop and handled bronze and iron 
door fixtures, bells, lamps and candlesticks, 
and the dealer never hesitated an instant in 
pronouncing this thing thirteen hundred years 
old, and that eight hundred, and something 
else five hundred. One could load a trunk 
with these sacred relics, if he had the price, but 
when you are charged seven francs for an old 
bronze door-knocker with nothing but the word 
of the dealer that it was not made last week in 
the back shop, the appeal to credulity is more 
than Yankee blood can stand. Every one is 
warned, before going to Venice, not to pay the 
price asked for anything, for the dealers expect 



262 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

to come down; they are disappointed if there 
is not a bit of "bargaining." It really seems 
that dealing is a game rather than a business, 
and that they are all in it for the fun rather than 
for the money. It does not take long for the 
tourist to "get into the game/' and to like it. 
I dropped my good American watch on the 
stone floor of our palace and broke it, — the 
watch, not the floor, — and rather than have 
it "doctored" before I got home, I bought a 
new one. I bought a "Swiss watch" for a 
dollar and sixty cents, which I afterwards 
found sells in America for nine dollars, but 
instead of being puffed up with my achieve- 
ment, I was filled with shame that I did not 
get it for a dollar and a half. 

Venice seems to be made up very largely of 
palaces and churches. Along the Grand Canal 
there are very few buildings which sometime 
have not been palaces. A good many have 
been "converted," and are now serving as 
hotels, or warehouses, or art galleries, or mar- 
kets or stores, or pensions. The last is the 
foreign name for the "boarding house"; it 
sounds well, and is cheaper than a hotel, and 
if one is to make a long stay in any place, far 
more desirable, as it affords an opportunity 
to get close to the people, in fact quite as close 



ROUND ABOUT VENICE 263 

as one dares to in many instances. But in 
spite of their " conversion" the palaces are 
really very attractive, more so on the outside 
than inside. For in those days when men were 
building palaces and had the time, the tem- 
perament, the artistic sense and the money, 
whether it was their own or not, they created 
some worthy and enduring "fronts" which are 
well worth days and weeks of study. There 
is much beauty of design, marvelous delicacy 
of treatment, and particularly a command of 
stubborn marble which gives it the ductility 
of life. The ivy which clambers over one of 
our old churches shows hardly more flexibility 
and versatility than a piece of marble in the 
hands of one of those old Venetians. 

There is nothing in the world, so far as I 
know, more thoroughly ideal in the way of 
aesthetic enjoyment than to drift slowly along 
the Grand Canal and just study the fronts of 
these palaces so rich in art and history. It 
would take a book of considerable size merely 
to catalogue them, and with the exception of 
a few which were especially fixed by some 
historic connection, there remains only a con- 
fusion of color and form, and yet a confusion 
that in itself is artistic and rich in most ex- 
quisite memories. 



264 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

I recall, however, the Palace of Guistiniani, 
which that wretch Launcelot Gobbo pointed 
out to me on my midnight visit, which dates 
back to the fourteenth century and where 
Wagner is said to have dwelt, but we found 
near the other end of the canal the Palace 
Vendramin Calergi, a marvelous creation of the 
fifteenth century, where Wagner died, and to 
which all Venice points as a sort of Wagnerian 
memorial. In spite of the beauty and peculiar 
architectural charm of these fronts, most of 
us require the personal touch in some way to 
hold them in memory. In Venice, as every- 
where in the world, only the abnormal ab- 
sorbs itself in material things apart from the 
personal. The fact that our own W. D. 
Howells lived for a time in the Palace Falier 
fixes that fifteenth-century gothic building in 
our mind's eye far more distinctly than either 
the truth or beauty of its architectural lines. 
We turn away from this, to find diagonally 
across the canal the Palace Rezzonico, warmed 
into an enduring place in our hearts by the fact 
that Robert Browning died there in 1889, and 
a little farther on, on the same side, is the 
Palace Balbi, from the windows of which Na- 
poleon and Josephine used to watch the pano- 
rama of aquatic life. But now it is occupied 



ROUND ABOUT VENICE 265 

by one "Guggenheim, dealer in pictures and 
antiquities." And we secretly wonder if there 
is any connection between him and one " Gug- 
genheim, Senator from Colorado, and owner 
of almost everything under the surface of the 
earth." There is the palace where Byron 
lived, the palace where Dante lived; even the 
home of Desdemona is pointed out; you have 
but to stay long enough to discover that nearly 
if not quite every one who ever amounted to 
much is associated with some palace in Venice. 
And we do not wonder, for the witchery of the 
place is almost sufficient to call the dead to life. 
And yet we turn from the many palaces to 
the one which, more than all others, by picture 
and story has been woven into the life of the 
world. Just over the bridge, crossing a tiny 
canal, from our hotel, and we were beneath 
its balconies, and from this point of view it 
was wholly unattractive, for it seemed more 
like a prison than a palace of residence, and all 
along in its shadow, at almost any time of day 
or night, there were men and women sitting 
on the pavement, or lying in grotesque form 
and sound asleep. And they were not of the 
courtier class, such as we had seen on the stage, 
and when in our boyish dreams we had visited 
palaces. They wore no silken or any other 



266 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



kind of hose, their garments were not of satin 
or of velvet, their locks were not perfumed 
with anything more fragrant than sea water, 
they bore no slender sword. They were just 
dirty, wretched-looking, everyday men and 
women who knew little and cared less for the 
secrets of the centuries which were hidden 




HOTEL DANIELI AND DOGES PALACE. 



within the walls against which they slept. 
But they were content and, perhaps, slept as 
sweetly outside as ever princes had slumbered 
within. 

To see the Doge's Palace one must get a long 
way off, it may be out on the Lagoon, and see 
it as a part of the picture; then the simple 
beauty of its lines is revealed, and the delicacy 
of its coloring, due to time quite as much as 



ROUND ABOUT VENICE 267 

to art, appeals to all that is fine in one's nature. 
In certain lights, the revel of color which we 
connect with all Venetian pictures is not an 
exaggeration, for sky and sea bend their 
charms to meet the upreach of man's art- 
yearning, and every blot is veiled, and all is 
beautiful. There can be nowhere in the world 
a more completely entrancing picture than the 
view from the Lagoon through between the 
two great palaces to the Piazza San Marco, 
with the center of the picture filled with the 
graceful lines of the new Campanile. 

But don't get too close, or you will see 
through the veil. If we could but come from 
the Lagoon into the Doge's Palace with our 
eyes shut, there would be no break in the 
charm. But probably we need to have it 
broken. Too much beauty is like too much 
sweet or too much of anything. It is good to 
feel the drawing of the baser as well as of the 
best, though we may respond but to the best, 
for the best will be a little better because of 
the contrast. And so with open eyes we crossed 
the Piazza to enter the palace, passing from 
sunshine into shadow, but also passing from 
human shadows into human sunlight. 

Something over one thousand years ago a 
palace was first built on this site, which was 



268 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

destroyed during wars or insurrections, as were 
four others which followed it. The present 
building is four or five hundred years old, and 
has the virtue, or the fault, of looking about 
the same age as everything else in the city, 
including some of the people. There is a 
grand entrance, called the " Porta della Carta," 
because the official bulletin board was hung 
there in the olden times, before the advent 
of the newspaper. Through this gate we come 
into the court, from which entrance is had 
to the various rooms. Two staircases, the 
"Giant's" and the "Golden Stairs," lead up to 
the several balconies, the latter being reserved 
for the feet of royalty alone. The Hall of the 
Grand Council is the chief interest, for here 
sat the representatives of the noblest families, 
to whom the government of the republic was 
committed. No assembly has been held since 
1849, and now but heroic memories fill the 
great area of the hall, aided by a wonderful 
series of historic pictures, many of them by 
the Masters. 

The Republic of Venice is no more. It was 
never a republic according to our understand- 
ing of the term, but in its day it was a long 
reach ahead towards the ideals even we have 
not yet realized. The Doge was not a Presi- 



ROUND ABOUT VENICE 269 

dent — simply an executive officer; he was 
a ruler, and to a considerable extent his will 
was absolute. But there were some things 
about that old government which foreshadowed 
the true principles of democratic rule. And 
Venice takes its proper place in history as 
one of the rungs in the ladder on which the 
world is climbing to better things. There was 
one feature of the Venetian government which 
deserves particular mention, and that is pre- 
served in the "Hall of Scrutiny," in which the 
Senators cast their votes. There might have 
been secret caucuses in those days as now, but 
when it came to the actual voting the ballots 
must be cast in the open, and any one in the 
republic, and even strangers, might look on 
and see how each man voted. No doubt great 
progress has been made in every form of 
government of nations, large and small, but 
when we look back over the centuries along 
the course of the struggles of men, how pitiful 
appears the pride of the man himself! Behold, 
a people calls one of its number to serve, and 
he struts his brief time before the multitude 
and feeds his ears with the applause, and if he 
is able, has his form reproduced in marble, and 
then he dies, and before another century is 
gone he is forgotten, and his statue, if it have 



270 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the merit of true art, takes its place in its niche, 
to help a coming student or stir the curiosity 
of the passing tourist, but if it be simply a 
reproduction of the man, it chinks a hole in 
the wall of a new administration. Well, even 
the pitiful clinging to life, which leads us to 
transmute ourselves into something more en- 
during than flesh and blood, makes its con- 
tribution to human welfare and happiness. 
But it may be that we are all building better 
than we know, and those who fall into the 
ground and die bring forth more fruit than 
those who stay on top of the earth and calcify. 
The Piazza of St. Mark is the center of 
Venetian interests. You can see every person 
in Venice if you remain long enough in the 
Square. It really seems that all are bound 
to come there sometime during the twenty- 
four hours of the day. I do not blame them; 
I should have liked to continue coming for 
days and days, for never have I seen a more 
varied and brilliant panorama of human life 
than is unrolled there. So common are the pic- 
tures of the place, with the feeding of the 
doves, the front of St. Mark's Church, the 
marvelous old clock, the flagstaffs, the Cam- 
panile, and more than all else, the kaleido- 
scopic shops, that even the newly arrived 



ROUND ABOUT VENICE 271 

American does not feel strange; it is just what 
we expected, only perhaps a little more so. 

St. Mark's Church for some reason does not 
appeal to me as some of the other great cathe- 
drals; perhaps it is so shut in that it does not 
have a fair show architecturally. If it were 
set out by itself, on some great height, it would 
be more impressive. And the inside too is 
disappointing, possibly because there is so much 
of it, and it is such a conglomerate of good 
things that none of them can receive their 
full value. For instance, there are over two 
acres of mosaics, and therefore not to be 
enjoyed any more than one can really enjoy 
two acres of violets or roses. To this great 
building have been brought the offerings of the 
faithful from every clime; the good, religious 
old Venetian pirates looted the temples and 
mosques of the East and brought the spoil 
to lay on the altar of their devotion, and among 
these pious thieves were a couple who stole 
the body of St. Mark the Evangelist from the 
temple he himself had founded in Alexandria 
and brought it to Venice, and it was buried 
beneath the altar, and St. Mark became the 
patron saint of the city. Just what would 
be St. Mark's honest opinion of the process of 
his exaltation is not given prominence in the 



272 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

annals of the Church, but he has this consola- 
tion, that if one must remain for several thou- 
sand years upon this earth, there is perhaps 
no better place in which to spend them than 
in the palace of the Queen of the Adriatic. 

It should always be moonlight in Venice, for 
only when the full moon sheds her mystic 
light does the real magic of the place tangle 
up and make captive the senses, and we sur- 
render the last restraint and give ourselves 
willing subjects in a fairyland. On one of 
those rare nights, when every condition was 
right, we " Angels," in our gondolas, joined 
what seemed an endless procession of these 
graceful black crafts, and made our way to the 
head of the Grand Canal, and became a part 
of such a musical carnival as can exist nowhere 
else on the face of the earth. A large platform 
was anchored in the stream, and this was 
laced all over with thousands of little lights, 
until everything material about it was hidden. 
Upon this platform were a fine orchestra and 
a number of the best singers obtainable, and 
the resources of the city were drawn upon to 
provide this entertainment. 

As early as we were in getting to the center 
of interest, already there were hundreds of 
gondolas crowding upon the platform, and 



ROUND ABOUT VENICE 273 

from every direction hundreds more were 
coming. Many of them were beautifully deco- 
rated with lights and bunting, and from all 
came the sound of laughter and voices of 
pleasure. It was but a few moments before 
the whole canal was literally packed from shore 
to shore with gondolas lying side by side and 
end to end, so close that presently men with 
sweets to sell ran from side to side as if the 
way were bridged. Then at a signal there 
was silence, and the music, like the moon- 
light, seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere. 
After a few selections, the singers' platform 
was loosed, and the whole living raft of gondolas 
moved slowly down the canal for perhaps a 
quarter of a mile, where a stop was made and 
another concert given; then on again for an- 
other quarter of a mile, and so on through the 
whole length of the canal and the length of 
the night, up to midnight, until we were drunk 
with music and novelty, and cared not whether 
it ever came to an end. 

This musical festival is provided by the city 
several times a week, and the whole population 
enters into its pleasure and splendor; many 
of the palaces along the way are brilliantly il- 
luminated, and colored fires glorify the shores. 
It is not the least of the marvels where so many 



274 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

gondolas come from; really, there are thousands 
of them, and how they can all come together 
in such close proximity and hold their forma- 
tion through the whole course of the musical 
procession is beyond our understanding. The 
only explanation of the wonder is that greater 
wonder, the gondolier himself, who has the 
most perfect control of his craft under all 
circumstances. He guides it with the accuracy 
of a bullet from a well-aimed rifle; he stops it 
when going at a rapid speed with a suddenness 
that is bewildering; he turns corners so close 
it makes you catch your breath; and all with 
never a sign of any special strain upon mind 
or muscle. He does get excited at other 
gondoliers, and their verbal battles are fierce 
to listen to, but after a little become but a part 
of a great harmony, where, so far as can be 
observed, life is free from care and just becomes 
one long, sweet song. 




CHAPTER XXIII 

THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 

IN WHICH FOUR ANGELS ADVENTURE INTO 
FLORENCE AND SOUTHERN ITALY 

T Venice we parted from the last 
large group of "Angels," and four 
of us took our solitary way, without 
a guide, into the new and strange 
fields of southern Italy. That we might save 
time and money, and get an early morning view 
of the Apennine mountains, we took a night train 
for Florence. We secured all we sought, — and 
some other things. There was no sleeper on the 
train, but as we must leave Venice very late, and 
be on the lookout very early, the few hours in 
the compartment seemed but a trifle to those 
who had imbibed the habit of the Berliners, of 
turning night into day. Experience has taught 
me, however, that there are two ends to a night, 
and that that period of time has different aspects, 
determined by the end from which the obser- 
vation is made. The "perfectly glorious time," 
which extends to four o'clock in the morning, is 
apt to reveal some shadows to the backward look. 

275 



276 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

We had a novel time if not a glorious time 
on an Italian night train, but we were sure the 
next morning that we had had enough. We 
had thought to secure a compartment to our- 
selves and so be very independent, but the lure 
of Venetian life made us late in getting to the 
station, and so when the train pulled out we 
found ourselves facing the biggest Italian in 
Italy and his family. We glared at each other 
fiercely for a few minutes, and then realizing 
that it did not matter, began chatting with each 
other in our best American. The Italians were 
perfectly still for some time, and then the man, 
making the discovery in some way that we were 
Americans, suddenly straightened up and began 
whistling our national hymn, "America." He 
whistled a verse, and then he sang a verse, and 
then we applauded; then he smiled, and we 
smiled; he invited us to take a drink — of 
water, and then we were good friends, though 
we had no means of communication save by 
the sign language, of which I had become sus- 
picious. But so far as companionship without 
speech is possible, we have only pleasant mem- 
ories of the big Italian and his family. We may 
not say so much of the last hours of the ride, 
for, in spite of ourselves, we did get deadly 
sleepy, and there is no twist possible to the 



THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 277 

human form which will make it conform with 
comfort to the angles and motions of the Euro- 
pean railway compartment for any consider- 
able length of time. And it was suggested to 
me, in that novel, if foolish, experience, that 
one can get a pretty fair notion of the boundless 
reach of eternity between the hours of two and 
four o'clock in the morning. 

But this " eternity " came to an end, and with 
the coming of the dawn in the midst of the 
Apennines came a reward which compensated 
in no small measure for the expenditure of 
energy in what proved to be a long and weary 
vigil. I have to confess, however, that even 
the most glorious scenery loses not a little of 
its charm when seen through sleepy eyes. An 
overdraft on body, brain or bank is pretty sure 
to make trouble of some kind. 

The Apennines are usually compared with 
the Alps, because travelers are either coming 
from or going to the Alps when they see them; 
but they should not be compared. There are 
points of likeness to be sure, as between all 
mountains, but the Apennines have sufficient 
individuality and character to stand alone. 
While there are crags and peaks, cliffs and 
chasms, these mountains of Italy touch one 
gently and appeal to the sentiment. Of course 



278 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

a history of the heroic has been written on their 
slopes and in their recesses, but we forgot the 
battles in the contemplation of the beauties. 
They do not aspire so high as to thrill the am- 
bitions; their mood is to appeal to the emotions. 
The feelings they awaken do not thrill so much 
as impress. Their lines are not sharp and clear- 
cut, incisive; they are soft in outline; they do 
not command, they woo. 

The railroad after quitting Bologna follows 
quite closely the general course up the river 
Reno until it is lost among the fountains on the 
heights, and then through many tunnels — 







THE ARNO, FLORENCE. 

between the two cities some forty or fifty — 
the train is carried out upon the other side of 
the range and we look down into the great 
valley of the Arno, the heart of Tuscany, in 
which throbs the life of "Florence, the fairest 
city in the world." 



THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 279 

We all know how the cities of Italy are en- 
titled: Rome, the eternal; Genoa, la superba; 
Naples, la bella; Venice, the queen; Florence, 
la gentile, — the city of fair flowers, or the fair 
flower of cities. We came with eyes eager, 
heart and mind receptive; and disappointment 
awaited us. Had we spent but one day in 
Florence, we should have brought away no trace 
of enthusiasm; but fortunately we were spared 
that fate. That first day had its place, but it 
was like learning the alphabet as the way into 
literature. We were like bees in the bottom of 
a great bowl, in which had settled the dregs 
containing sweets enough to sustain life, but 
affording no vision of the majesty and beauty 
beyond the rim. 

The cathedral is the center of every Italian 
city; it matters not whether the city began 
there, to reach out in all directions, or beginning 
elsewhere, groped its way back to attach itself 
to the heart of its interests. And it seems so 
unfortunate, from an aesthetic standpoint, that 
the cathedral in these cities has seemed to 
be as fateful in some instances as the railroad 
station is with us, in calling into its shadow, not 
the best and noblest in life and its achievements, 
but almost the worst. Whatever can do so, 
provided it has not the spirit of life within itself, 



280 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

seeks to engraft itself upon something living. 
And so to get near to these wondrous creations 
the path led through the common and not in- 
frequently through the wretched. 

Naturally we wanted to get at the "heart 
of things" first, and therefore went at once to 
the cathedral. There is a rivalry through all 
Europe in securing the earliest beginnings of 
the religious life, and Florence puts up a claim 
which, if sustained, must give her the victory, 
in insisting that "the site of its cathedral has 
always been sacred ground." This position is 
pretty safe, for while the Florentines may not 
be able to prove their contention, no one else 
can prove to the contrary. But they have his- 
tory to show that as early as 315 A.D. there was 
a recognized Bishop, Felice by name, and pre- 
sumably he had a place of worship, and not un- 
likely it was on this spot. The present build- 
ing dates back for its beginning not much over 
six hundred years, and has been in process of 
erection practically ever since, or up to twenty- 
three years ago, when it was officially finished. 
Of course during that time many architects 
have had a hand in it, but the original artist set 
his seal upon it by having a purpose to build 
"a temple which was to exceed in magnificence 
anything the world had ever seen," and the 



THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 281 

soul of his vision was a dome of such magnifi- 
cent proportions and exquisite lines that it 
could never be surpassed. And he was suc- 
cessful, for even Michelangelo admitted that 
while he might make a sister dome, he could 
not make one more beautiful, and the dome of 
St. Peter's at Rome falls short of this in some 
measurements. It is a misfortune, however, 
for the cathedral at Florence, that there is but 
one place from which the real grandeur and 
beauty of this dome is manifest, while the dome 
of St. Peter's dominates all Rome. 

Approaching the cathedral from the front 
but a faint suggestion of its glory is manifest, 
and even when inside it takes a long time and 
observations from many points before one can 
grasp its dignity and feel its sublimity. Prob- 
ably there has been more discussion about this 
interior than about almost any other in Europe, 
all because the thing is so big we have to grow 
up to it before we can know and appreciate it. 
And in the end we come back to "the dome, the 
dome/' always "the dome/' and we realize 
how wise and farseeing was that old architect 
who long ago sounded a note to which the cen- 
turies have been keyed. 

Within and without are works of art, mostly 
lost in the confusion of numbers. Beside the 



282 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



cathedral, but entirely detached, stands the 
Campanile, the " Bell Tower/' which, aside from 
the coloring, is one of the most beautiful towers 




THE CAMPANILE. 



in Europe. It is the work of Giotto, who, in 
1334, received instructions to surpass in mag- 
nificence everything in the world, and in the 
grace of its lines and the intricate beauty of its 
decorations there can be little question of his 



THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 283 

success. To my thinking, there are two towers 
in the one: one the glorious shaft which we see 
from a distance, so full of grace that it seems 
to have lost the quality of weight, and it would 
hardly surprise one to find it suspended in mid- 
air like the prophet's casket; the other that 
which we find in the closer view, when the 
stories told in decoration are read with the eyes 
held close, as when we read a book. And these 
two towers in one really fulfill the poet's fancy, 
"The city of Florence blossoming into stone." 

And yet in the very midst of this glory, right 
upon the steps of the cathedral to which the 
centuries had been given, for which lives had 
been sacrificed, and to which millions in money 
had been devoted, the appalling poverty and 
dirt and distress of wretched Italy awaited us, 
personified in a ragged and unkempt and thor- 
oughly miserable woman, with a still more 
wretched, diseased and seemingly dying baby 
in her arms, to beg for centesimi. Alas, poor 
Italy! — rich in art and religious symbolry, 
while the heart of humanity perishes with 
hunger at thy gates. 

The oldest building in Florence is connected 
with the cathedral in its office, though sepa- 
rated from it in fact. It is the Baptistery, dat- 
ing back some twelve or thirteen hundred years, 



284 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

and is, if one can think it without being irrev- 
erent, like a small "roundhouse," from which it 
would not surprise one to see locomotives issu- 
ing, until near enough to see the great bronze 
doors, when there will be revealed the miracle 
of what man can do with metal, weaving it into 
a tapestry of delicate beauty, until the remark 
of Michelangelo is appreciated, when he said, 
"Such doors are worthy to be the gates of 
Paradise." 

All about the Piazza and reaching far up the 
streets which ray out from it, are the shops, and 
in little niches between them places for the sale 
of wines, quite as common and occupying the 
same place in the life of the community as the 
soda fountain does in America. None of this 
section is attractive to the eye, though there 
are some fine shops, where jewelry and books 
may be secured. But it was in this section 
that we lost our hold upon "beautiful Flor- 
ence," and we thought it was redeemed only 
by the historic associations. For right here in 
the midst of the busy and sordid life of the com- 
mon every day, we were continually running 
across some marker upon the life of the great 
in the great past which had belonged to the 
city. This was the city of Dante. They have 
a stone in the street marking the place where he 



THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 285 

used to come to sit and look upon the cathe- 
dral, which appealed to his imagination. Here 
in the midst of the rush of modern living is 
the house in which he lived and wrote after he 
had dreamed out the nightmare of his Inferno. 
Never has there been an instance so pronounced 
of a mind being obsessed with a theology until 
it really took material form in the imagina- 
tion and accompanying the imagination, an 
ability to picture with words so that all the 
world should see all it saw, and sometimes a 
little more. And it is extraordinary how im- 
pressionable is the mind of the world, in that 
it has been shaped and directed in its theo- 
logical thinking not more by the Bible than by 
the weird and extravagant imaginings of a 
Dante and a Milton. 

Here, too, Michelangelo, the master of mas- 
ters in nearly every department of art, dwelt, 
and his house is marked; but even more is he 
remembered in the Piazza named in his honor, 
from which it was our privilege later to discover 
the real and the beautiful Florence for which 
we searched in vain where the crowd most did 
congregate. 

There is a deal of curiosity connected with 
four historic names to which Florence gives 
honors in these days. Remembering the re- 



286 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

ligious history of the city, the religious tem- 
perament of the people, how she stands next to 
Rome . in the devotion and sacrifice made to 
sustain and exploit the Romish Church, it is 
almost startling to note the changes which the 
years have brought about, and see the pride 
with which the citizens associate their city with 
the names of Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci, the 
Brownings, and Theodore Parker. It was in 
this city that the works of Galileo were burned 
and he was compelled under fearful suffering to 
recant his scientific conclusions in public speech, 
but reasserting them in whisper in the same 
breath. To-day Florence cares for the house 
in which he lived, for a temple, tomb, tower and 
villa through which to preserve his memory. 
The really great navigator, though not the dis- 
coverer of our country, but from whom we re- 
ceive our name America, was born in Florence 
and is remembered to honor. And then those 
wonderful leaders of the new literature of the 
nineteenth century, the Brownings, and that 
heroic American leader of the new religious 
thought and life and of the larger Christian 
Church, Parker. Strange anomaly! We went 
out to the Protestant cemetery where the 
bodies of Mrs. Browning and Theodore Parker 
are buried, that we might pay the tribute of 



THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 



287 



our American gratitude and devotion to these 
who have contributed so much to the deeper 
and truer life of our country. 

There is a significance in the presence of the 
body of Theodore Parker in Florence greater 
than many realize, for though that body may 
never pass the walls which surround the ceme- 
tery, the spirit of Theodore Parker is abroad all 
through Italy. Strange as it may appear, it is 
a fact that that priest-ridden country is to-day 
the home of the greatest religious revolt of the 
present century; a revolt against all that is bad 
in the Romish Church, and a spirit of splendid 
adventure after that which is rationally and 
ethically Christian. 

It was after our return from the commercial 
and historic Florence that we felt our disap- 
pointment, and felt that "the fairest city of 
the world" was but a figment of the imagina- 
tion of the poet. But there came a new day, 
after a good night's rest, and a new Florence, 
when, under wise guidance, we saw the real city 
to which the yearning feet of the best life of the 
whole world have turned. We found galleries 
the equal of anything the world over and, com- 
petent critics say, better than any others. So 
far as one may judge by the names of the artists, 
there is no more complete collection, and for 



288 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



the lover of art here is the companionship of 
the best the world has known. 

But we found the Florence of which we had 
read and dreamed, not associated with the 
galleries and their treasures; we found it only 
when we got away from the center, up along 
the hills which hold the city in their arms. 
When we crossed by the Ponte Vecchio over the 




PONTE VECCHIO. 



river, we tried hard to see the poet's "Sunny 
charms within the Arno's breast," but found 
only rather painful suggestions of the yellow 
Schuylkill which flows through our own city of 
Brotherly Love. But beyond, among the gar- 
dens and the palaces, through the broad streets, 
which lift one gently through marvelous winding 
ways, up and up, to reveal, as through vine- 
framed windows, ever more and more charming 



THE UNFOLDING OF ITALY 289 

scenes, until at last we came to the Piazza 
Michelangelo, and looking over the walls, we 
knew why Florence was called the fairest city 
in the world. From that point none of the 
soil and dinginess was visible, there came to us 
no sense of the shadows which gathered in the 
alleys and drear places of the town, and even 
the mud which on closer view discolored the 
river Arno, from this point only changed it 
into a little golden river, which most fittingly 
flowed through a fairyland. 

It takes us long to learn the lesson that we 
must not get too close to that which we would 
love, and some never learn, at least while on 
the earth. We press our flowers so hard against 
our heart that they are crushed, and we cast 
them from us with a shudder, wondering why 
we ever loved such misshapen things. Perhaps 
we shall know more sometime, when some wise 
guide takes us over the river and up on the 
heights, and we look out over this world we 
have been criticizing, and up into the heaven 
we have been questioning. It may be just as 
we found a new Florence and the real Florence 
when we got the right point of view. Perhaps 
there will be a new heaven and a new earth 
when the former things shall have passed away. 




CHAPTER XXIV 

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 
AND EVEN THE ANGELS GET THERE AT LAST 

'N going from Florence to Rome we 
followed the Arno up towards its 
source in the mountains which am- 
phitheater Tuscany, and then, plung- 
ing through many tunneled gates, we found the 
headwaters of the historic Tiber, which we fol- 
lowed down to the Eternal City. It is a most 
interesting journey. Historically, it follows the 
route of Hannibal, the road at one place running 
close along the shore of Lake Trasimeno, which 
was the scene of one of his great battles, in 
which the records show that fifteen thousand 
Romans were killed in three hours, and the 
brook, since called Sanguinetto, which flows into 
the lake, ran red with blood. All this happened 
twenty-one hundred years ago, and I am deeply 
impressed by the comparison between ancient 
and modern warfare as disclosed in the reports 
of the present conflict going on in our neigh- 
boring country of Mexico, in which an engage- 
ment between the government troops and the 

290 



ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 291 

rebels extended over a period of two days and 
there were "no casualties on either side." 
Thus do we see what strides civilization has 
taken, how war has been robbed of its terrors 
and made ladylike and enjoyable. But what 
would Hannibal think? What would he think 
of some of the battles of the more ambitious 
nations, in which the destruction of half a 
dozen mules and the wounding of one man is 
spoken of as a scene of carnage? What would 
Hannibal think of our new methods of warfare 
in which, in the hands of a truly great civiliza- 
tion, bacteria are more powerful than bullets, 
and the spore mightier than the spear? 

Nothing could be more archaic than the cities 
and towns along this delightful way. The pas- 
senger needs to pinch himself occasionally to 
be sure he is awake and not dreaming the 
Arabian Nights scenes which are unfolding be- 
fore him. Walled cities belong so entirely to 
the past and to romance, that it requires a con- 
scious effort on the part of the live Yankee to 
believe that he is not the victim of an illusion 
as he sees perched far up on the side or the 
extreme top of a mountain a most picturesque 
pile, from which it would not surprise him to 
see emerging a company of armored knights 
going forth to battle with an enemy approach- 



292 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

ing from another mountain fastness. It is an 
anomaly we realize, that behind those old walls, 
some of them dating back into the centuries 
before Christ, modern people are living, modern 
interests are being pursued, and in some things 
the people are quite as progressive as we are. 
In the field of art they are, of course, far ahead 
of us. Here is the town of Assisi with a popu- 
lation of only five thousand, yet in the churches 
are some examples of the work of the Old Mas- 
ters. There are other things besides. But 
place over against this town an American com- 
munity of equal numbers, and where can we 
find one in which there is a suggestion of estab- 
lishing anything which can hold a permanent 
place in art? And then, on the other hand, 
where can you find in America a community of 
like size showing such wretchedness in poverty 
and degeneration? We have come at life from 
opposite standpoints. Those old Italians built 
churches to glorify God, and they sacrificed 
themselves in doing what they believed would 
be glorious in the sight of God; they sought for 
beauty and grandeur, and with a transcendent 
purpose they attained a transcendent result. 
We of America and to-day seek to glorify God 
through service to man, and verily we have 
our reward; we would put a perfected humanity 



ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 293 

as our offering against the perfection of design 
and coloring of the old Italian. As in most 
things, both are wrong and both are right. 
They need the perfecting of humanity, we need 
the perfecting of the sense of design and color, 
of beauty. And so it takes all the ages and all 
the peoples to make a man, and all the peoples 
and all the ages to glorify God. 

Assisi is distinguished as being the city of 
St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan order 
of friars. Here is the original monastery, 
which, aside from its historical associations and 
some moderate art treasures, typifies the change 
which has taken place in Italy, for it is now a 
school. It was early in the thirteenth century 
that the order was founded, but before the 
beginning of the nineteenth century there were 
nine thousand monasteries and one hundred and 
forty-five thousand monks. St. Francis is said 
to have died seventeen years after he estab- 
lished this mighty society, and the years follow- 
ing to the number of five hundred were filled 
with controversy as to what had become of his 
body, and then it was settled by the discovery 
of a stone coffin containing some remains, and 
these were pronounced genuine by a vote of 
the cardinals, announced by the Pope, and 
"all skeptics in the matter being henceforth 



294 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

declared liable to excommunication/ ' none have 
presumed to question. 

This place I have used not because it is re- 
markable in any way, but because it is not; it is 
simply typical of hundreds of towns of Italy, 
differing but in the name and fame of their 
saint, or of some peculiar product, and is a 
miniature of the larger cities, even that of Rome 
itself which we were approaching. Here is a 
whole nation giving itself to the expression of 
a religious idea. It does not matter how that 
religious idea may appeal to us; it may involve 
the wildest absurdities, or violate our every 
conception of truth, yet there is no understand- 
ing of Italy without the recognition of this 
fact, that back of all its achievements in art, 
in music, in literature, in war, in peace, in 
industry, in commerce, in virtue and in sin, 
there has been a religious motive; remove that 
and what is there left of Italy, that is, of old 
Italy? 

Within the last few years a new Italy has 
been born, which is writing a new story. The 
old and the new are living here side by side, not 
altogether in amity, and nothing strikes one 
more forcibly than the incongruities to be met 
at every turn. The Protestant world comes 
to study the achievements of Rome, and the 



ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 295 

Roman robber invokes the aid of his saint that 
he may be prospered in his nefarious schemes. 
Wealth and poverty walk hand in hand, and if 
they do not sleep in the same bed, there is only 
a very thin wall separating them ! Such beauty 
and bounty as few places in the earth can afford, 
coddling as a mother does her children, dirt, 
disease and death. Less than half a century ago 
nearly all the landed property and many of the 
industries and commercial enterprises of the 
nation were in the hands of the Church, and 
naturally it would be supposed that their man- 
agement would be nearly ideal, but instead, 
every possible abuse was fostered. Neglect and 
corruption sapped the life of property and 
people to the point of famine, while the 
churches and religious orders flourished in 
luxury. Then came the revolt of the people; 
there grew up an attitude of defiance towards 
not only the church but also towards religion, 
and as a result, Italy to-day, supposedly the 
home of religion, is really the nursery of free 
thought, or perhaps no thought, for very largely 
the people are in an attitude of indifference to 
the church, practically telling the religionists to 
attend to their own affairs of the soul, and the 
state will look after the material welfare. Fifty 
years of this has resulted in the new Italy, 



296 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

and the whole country has been transformed. 
Cities are modern in their equipment; they have 
all the comforts and conveniences of life; travel 
has generally become safe and pleasant; and the 
health conditions have been so improved that, 
with an occasional lapse, there is nothing to fear 
in visiting Italy even during the heated term. 

But let no one imagine that ideal conditions 
are already established. Improvements have 
been made through the separation of Church and 
State, but other evils have arisen to take the 
places of those eradicated or modified. It is 
true that the cities have been transformed, and 
there is a new face to the land, but these trans- 
formations have cost such vast sums of money 
to secure and are costing such vast sums to main- 
tain, that the taxes have become almost prohib- 
itive of enterprise. It is estimated that the State 
takes thirty per cent of the income of the peo- 
ple, and that it must do this to provide the 
improvements demanded and to maintain the 
great standing army and the vast navy which 
are deemed necessary. And with these heavy 
taxes have come public abuses of the most ex- 
travagant type. In one commune where the 
tax levy was four thousand four hundred dollars 
it cost thirty-six hundred dollars to collect it. 
The methods of the assessors are open to the 



ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 297 

most severe criticism, and furnish the oppor- 
tunity for the most rank corruption. And in 
spite of the great sums of money which reach 
the government, and of the great works which 
have already been performed, the uplift of the 
people is yet far in the future; generations and 
not years merely are to measure the time of 
Italy's redemption. 

These things I read and these thoughts I 
thought during our long rides in Italy, which 
brought me to the conclusion that the problem 
of the relation between Church and State had 
not been settled by Italy, and to the further 
conclusion that to separate Church and State 
is a blessing, while to separate religion and gov- 
ernment is a curse. When the Church uses the 
State for its own selfish ends, it is quite as 
much a looter and a grafter as an individual 
who despoils his country; while the government 
which tries to get along without religion as the 
elemental motive and the guiding principle is 
doomed to failure. 

In figuring the creative forces m the world's 
development we cannot omit the power of the 
Romish Church. It does not matter what may 
be our own attitude, or how violently we may 
protest against her motive and her method, she 
is a factor in human history not to be left out. 



298 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

To-day we are witnessing the curious fact that 
she is declining in her strongholds and gaining 
in new territory. Italy, France, Spain and 
Portugal have laid the hand of power upon her 
and commanded her to keep within her own 
realm; they have had the experience of her un- 
restrained control; they have watched while 
other nations passed them in the race for pros- 
perity and advancement, and realizing at last 
the blight that was upon them have risen to 
cast it off. And just as it always has been, and 
perhaps always will be, they are sure to cast 
off with the organic Church those great moral 
restraints and religious inspirations, which are as 
essential to governmental as to individual life. 
They are casting off the sources of their own 
wealth that they may open up the sources 
other nations enjoy, and they will accomplish 
what they seek. But when they have secured 
material prosperity they will use it to try to 
buy back the wealth which to-day they are 
sacrificing, just as our people of great wealth 
are eager to spend it in securing even little 
fragments of the glory of the Old World. That 
is, with all its faults, we cannot fail to recog- 
nize that the Romish Church, perhaps through 
its own selfishness, through its own violation of 
the spirit of the Divine Master, in compelling 



ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 299 

men to serve it, instead of itself serving man, has 
created an art, a literature, a music, and has set 
the ages awondering at the temples it has 
erected for its dwelling place. And we can say, 
all these things it should have done and not left 
the other undone. For when it built its temples 
out of human hearts and paid for its art with 
food from its children's mouths, it courted mat- 
ricide. 

It takes the nations of the world long to learn 
to strike a balance and rightly apportion values. 
The great lessons of life are not easily or quickly 
learned. We have been studying Christianity 
for nineteen hundred years, and barely know 
the alphabet. But there is progress. The rise 
and decline of Romanism are steps along the 
way. To climb upwards Italy steps down to 
the commercial ideals of other countries; to go 
forward other peoples go back to study Rome. 
The great trouble with the world is that it tries 
to walk on One leg. It needs two. In the old 
days, religion was incidental to the Church, and 
the Church was glorified in structure and adorn- 
ment; in the new day, the Church is to be inci- 
dental to religion and, serving religion through 
all kinds of establishments, shall aid the bring- 
ing of the kingdom of heaven into individuals 
and governments, until they are full rounded 



300 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



creatures, neither sacerdotal nor socialistic, but 
both; neither material nor spiritual, but both. 
It takes both body and soul to make a man or 




ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. 



a government. The old Romish Church had 
soul, but tried to embody it in things instead 
of embodying it in man, and it could not live, 
any more than the material body of Italy will 
live without soul. 



ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 301 

After all, what are we struggling for when we 
build our walls and palaces and tombs? For 
hours we have been traveling through the old 
cities and towns of Etruria, or what is left of 
them, — a bit of the wall, a fragment of the 
art-yearning of souls which lived centuries 
before the Christian era. We touch a relic 
with our hand and our hand touches another 
human hand away across the ages, the hand of 
one who was thinking in an elemental way the 
same thought we are thinking to-day. He was 
saying that he wanted to be different from 
others, a little better perhaps as he defined 
" better"; he was saying that he would not be 
like his brethren and live for a little and then 
pass away; he would do something or make 
something which should live through all the 
years to come, and men through all time should 
call him blessed. And so he made this bit of 
pottery which we are holding in our hands, and 
we are asking, Who was he? What was he? 
Here is the work of his hands, but he is gone, 
and left no trace, save as he made his contri- 
bution to that great indefinite thing we call 
life, which we, like all those who have gone 
before, are hunting for, and working for, and 
praying for. Who knows whether we are any 
nearer to it than was the Etruscan potter who 



302 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

two thousand years ago swung into this world 
out of somewhere and then swung out again 
into another somewhere, just as we are doing? 
He made his jug of clay and burned it in the 
sun, and we are looking at it to-day. We make 
ours of sand, — and to-morrow's rain will dis- 
solve it. Have we made life any bigger and 
better? 

It is most fitting to approach Rome through 
Etruria, for Rome was the next link in history. 
And so we followed down the banks of the 
yellow Tiber at the tail end of that great pro- 
cession of vandals, and warriors and chiefs, and 
conquerors, and kings and emperors which for 
more than two thousand years has been moving 
upon the city, and all the while the yellow 
Tiber has been running beside the procession. 
It was running there ages and ages before the 
procession started, and it will still be running 
when the procession has passed. Sometimes 
men have tried to harness and drive it, but it is 
so patient, and waits a little, only the fraction 
of an instant out of the eternity of its life, and 
the hand upon the reins slackens, and the yel- 
low water runs laughing away to the sea, bear- 
ing upon its current perhaps the body of the 
would-be driver. 

Away back in the third century one of this 



ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME 303 

procession of Masters got into the city, and 
then to keep others out he built about it a 
great wall which was so strong it withstood the 
assaults of generations; even time but smoothed 
off its corners and made more firm its founda- 
tion, and in these later years it was a marvel of 
antiquity, and men came to look upon it from 
the world over, saying that here is something 
that is real and enduring, But in the later 
procession there was a new engine of a new 
war, before which it was humbled, and it bowed 
itself to the earth, and a modern locomotive 
drew a train of modern cars through the breach 
in the Wall of Aurelian, and we, being passen- 
gers on the train, thus entered Rome. 





CHAPTER XXV 

BEING IN ROME 
THE ANGELS DO AS THE ROMANS DID NOT 

'NSTEAD of being carried to a palace 
in a garland-decked and rose-scented 
litter on the shoulders of eight slaves, 
while the populace howled an enthu- 
siastic welcome to Rome, the " Angels" walked 
across the Viale Principessa Margherita to a 
very good modern hotel. Times have changed 
since Nero returned from Greece with the prizes 
won at the Olympian games. And the Ameri- 
can "sovereign" is different too. There had 
lingered a faint hope that there might remain 
some traces of the old Rome we had read about, 
and with books we nursed this hope as we ap- 
proached the city; and it was with a distinct 
disappointment that we were shown to rooms, 
via an electric elevator, which, save for their 
stone floors, bare walls and high ceilings, did 
not differ greatly from those to be found in 
any well-appointed inn the world over. There 
seemed a bare chance that at dinner we might 
conform and be conformed to the old customs. 

304 



BEING IN ROME 305 

We had pictured to ourselves the luxurious din- 
ing hall, at the door of which we were to put 
off our shoes, — and I believe one "Angel" did 
secretly unfasten the lacing, — and within we 
should see a group of people wearing tunic and 
toga, and reclining on inlaid couches, while 
slaves kept them cool with great fans, and rap- 
turous music stole away their senses. And then 
we were to be served with pelorious oysters, 
turbot drowned in oil, Sicilian lampreys, boar's 
head, flamingos, turtles, dormouse and the 
peacock, washed down with spiced wines cooled 
with snow brought from the Apennines. We 
read about all those things in very well written 
books by authors of good repute. But we kept 
our shoes on. Conventional waiters in con- 
ventional dress served us to what might have 
been bread from Minneapolis flour, butter 
from the cotton fields of Dixie, pickles from 
Pittsburg, soup from Camden, fish from Glouces- 
ter, beef from Chicago, potatoes from Maine, 
corn from Michigan, marmalade from Florida 
and peaches from California. The macaroni 
and olives were Italian. 

When we started for St. Peter's, as good 
tourists do as soon as possible after arrival, we 
again departed from the old Roman customs, 
and instead of doing as the notorious Nero did 



306 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

when he went to his circus, — riding in a two- 
wheeled chariot, driving three or more semi- 
wild horses, with armed soldiers to guard the 
way, he himself being dressed in a white sheet 
with a golden girdle and a wreath of laurel for 
a hat, — we plunged into the mob, and got 
standing room on the front platform of a 
trolley car, which gave us a joyous sense of 
being at home during the rush hours in the 
subway. 

And really I think the trolley much more 
comfortable than the chariot, and quite as dig- 
nified. The chariots I have seen were marked 
by a conspicuous lack of those modern conven- 
iences, such as springs, which make driving a 
delight; and while there may have been ex- 
citement for the driver and entertainment for 
the spectators in the bouncing about over the 
rough pavement from curb to curb, as for me 
and my house, put us down among the he- 
retical modernists on the question of transpor- 
tation. And yet those wretched old chariots 
accomplished one of the marvels of human 
achievement in the matter of road building. 
Because the wagons were so bad the roads must 
of necessity be good, and so the Roman roads 
which were built two thousand years ago are 
in good condition to-day, while those we build 



BEING IN ROME 307 

to-day, — the next administration will tear up 
and build worse ones. 

We have grown some during the last twenty 
centuries; even if we cannot build as good 
roads, we do not destroy so many men in the 
building. We have our troubles. Our country 
is shaken from center to circumference because 
we are paying our road builders only eighteen 
cents an hour when humanity demands that 
they get twenty. We work them, some of them, 
nine hours a day, when common justice insists 
that they shall not work more than eight. In 
some way they get three meals a day of fairly 
good food, and they have something to say as to 
how they shall be governed. But in those old 
days there was one man, sometimes there were 
two or three men, at the head, and he or they 
got results regardless of the cost in human life 
and happiness. The lives of men were not as 
valuable to them as are the lives of beasts to us. 
The slaughter of a few thousand was but a 
passing incident, and often that slaughter was 
made to contribute to the amusement of those 
in power. Of course old history pictures only 
those who were on the surface; the great mass 
which made the strong current of life have no 
place, and all we know is that a thousand, or 
ten thousand, or fifty thousand of the great 



308 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

unknown were sacrificed that one might sit upon 
a throne or that another might be thrown down. 
Once good roads were built of human lives that 
a brute might ride in ease to greater power; to- 
day, in spite of our selfishness and sin, we are 
building good roads as the way for humanity to 
come to its own. We have not the roads, and 
the temples which adorn them, such as we 
journey over the ocean to see, but there are 
few of us who have not more of comfort in 
daily life than the most extravagant of Roman 
rulers enjoyed; there are few who have not 
nobler aspirations and loftier ideals than even 
the poets of the olden days dreamed. And yet 
we spend years in filling the minds of our chil- 
dren with the names and deeds of those squab- 
blers for power, who rode through slaughter 
to a throne which they disgraced. We teach 
our children to catalogue this bloody crew 
among humanity's great. And I wonder if 
it is right and best. Have we nothing better 
with which to fill the hungry minds of our boys 
and girls than the stories of these "greatest 
men in history/' whose claim to glory rests on 
the fact that they were a little more demonic 
and debauched than those whom they . dis- 
placed ; who violated every principle of human- 
ity and saturated the years with the blood of 



BEING IN ROME 309 

their fellow creatures. A very little old Roman 
history will go a long way in satisfying real 
needs in the development of the young life 
of to-day. 

But we are in modern Rome, with its new 
streets and new life and new interests; we are 
riding on the front platform of a modern elec- 
tric car, and the ground we are going over and 
the buildings between which we are passing do 
not seem historic, save as we catch a glimpse of 
some old church or palace out of tune with the 
present. The crowd of people upon the plat- 
form are not so unlike our own crowds at home 
similarly situated; they are a little darker of 
skin and eyes, a little more intense in manner 
and speech, but it is easy to fancy they are 
talking about the same things and thinking 
much the same thoughts as our own people do; 
the world is not so very big any more. But it 
was all strange and we felt a bit lost until we 
suddenly swung out on a bridge over the Tiber, 
and then all at once we were at home; we had 
caught sight of a something familiar; we knew 
where we were. It was like seeing a familiar 
face in a crowd of strangers. 

Such is the power of a picture upon the mind. 
None of us had ever been there before; we had 
not yet acquired any sense of location and of 



310 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

distance, and yet all at once we knew, just be- 
cause at the other end of the bridge we saw 
the splendid old Castle of St. Angelo, just as we 
had seen it in pictures since childhood. We 
found some things older, and some bigger and 
some more glorious in every way, but somehow 
this old castle has always caught and held my 
fancy as the embodiment of Rome. 

Built originally as a mausoleum for the mem- 
bers of the nobility, nearly eighteen hundred 
years ago, it has served as a fortress round 
which have swirled the battles of the centuries, 
and as a prison, harboring prisoners of inter- 
national renown, and as a most picturesque 
ruin it now commands the attention of the 
world. It was not a disappointment. So often 
the pictures of childhood magnify out of all 
reason, but though I had dreamed this castle 
into one of the biggest things on earth, as it 
loomed before us from the bridge it measured 
quite up to my dream. Of course it is not as 
big as the Colosseum, but it is big enough to be 
splendid in its dignity. The Emperor Hadrian, 
who built it for his tomb and memorial, was a 
good deal more successful than most of those 
old fellows who gambled with the future for 
the chance to live. His name is still connected 
with his monument, though Pope Gregory, four 



BEING IN ROME 311 

hundred years later, with the help of a vision, 
transformed the mausoleum into a castle, 
thinking probably that Hadrian had received 
all he deserved of honor, and should get a bit 
of punishment for his insult to the Christ who 
he thought "might be given a niche in the 
temple with the other gods/' That is more 
than a good many who ought to know him 
better, give him. 

The Castle of St. Angelo may now be looked 
upon as a sort of outwork to St. Peter's; in 




CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, ROME. 



fact, there was once a protected way from the 
Vatican, through which the rulers of the Church 
might flee to the castle for safety. And follow- 
ing along this old wall, we approach as nearly 
as we may in the car the center of all the great 
interests of the Roman Catholic world, the 
Piazza of St. Peter, with its splendid colon- 
nades, and before us in the center rises the 



312 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

largest church building in the world, and on 
the right that palace of power and mystery, 
the Vatican. 

It matters little what may be one's religious 
opinions, I am confident that no man of thought 
can stand in that place indifferent to the sensa- 
tions which the place awakens. It was another 
instance of the revival of a picture established 
in the mind by long association. Complaint 
is often made that from this point the majesty 
of the building, particularly of the great dome, 
into which Michelangelo put his inspiration, 
is lost, because the next architect so modified 
his plans, by carrying forward the facade, as to 
dwarf the greater thought. But I am not so 
sure, for now the dome, its foundations being 
hidden, seems to be suspended in the air, and 
yet so perfect are its proportions, so thoroughly 
well balanced, there is nothing unnatural in its 
position, but it blends as harmoniously with the 
sky as the drift of a cloud. 

We crossed the Piazza, approaching the steps, 
up which the great as well as the small have 
crept on bended knees, with no small degree of 
wonder if not of reverence. The thing is so 
great, to have been made by man, — the ant 
and the ant hill are outdone. For nearly two 
thousand years these little insect men have 



BEING IN ROME 313 

been building and tearing down, and building 
again, all the time trying to fix a thought with 
the solidity and endurance of stone, each gen- 
eration bringing its contribution of a grain of 
sand, which the next generation weighed in the 
balance, and if found wanting it was cast away, 
and thus with the patience of centuries this 
pile was builded. To me it is not beautiful, 
excepting in some details, but it is big, it is 
grand, it is majestic, it is glorious, it is thrilling. 
It is not a bit of music frozen into stone as is 
the cathedral at Cologne; it is the solidified 
cry of the multitudes of the teeming millions of 
earth. 

We climbed the steps, not on our knees, to 
the vestibule, which itself is larger than some 
of the greatest churches, being two hundred 
and thirty-five feet long, sixty feet high and 
forty-two feet wide. Here we were held up by 
a custodian who made us understand that we 
must leave our cameras before entering the 
building, and that he would take care of them 
for twenty centesimi, and thus unarmed, we 
passed through the doors of St. Peter's. I am 
not presumptuous enough to attempt a de- 
scription even of my own impressions. One 
needs to stand still at the entrance for several 
hours and let his eyes adjust themselves to 



314 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

new measurements, else he will misjudge every- 
thing. And after he feels that he has thus ad- 
justed himself, and moves to a new and better 
point of view, he will realize that he must 
begin all over again. The extended nave has 
eclipsed the splendor of the dome from that 
point, but really it is better so, for such maj- 
esty needs to be approached gradually, and as 
one passes up the long nave the dome seems 
to open, spread out and soar into such vast 
proportions as to be unreal. And the mind 
must be forced by some specific figures and 
commonplace analogies before it can sense the 
scale on which everything is built. Just where 
the curve of the dome begins there is a latin 
inscription done in mosaic, and the letters ap- 
pear the normal size, but we look at our book 
and discover that each letter is but a fraction 
less than five feet high. And then there are 
some medallions showing the Apostles, and they 
do not appear at all out of proportion, and yet 
we read that the pen in the hand of St. Luke is 
seven feet long, and we can figure out that if 
we were near enough we should discover that 
the figure of the man himself must be nearly 
forty feet in height. We have come up out of 
the world of ordinary people and are dealing 
with giants. We must fix new standards on 



BEING IN ROME 315 

which to base our judgment. We must see 
through new eyes. And this is the reason why 
there are so many opinions about St. Peter's; 
we cannot all make new eyes alike in the brief 
time we have for the making. It is like a half 
dozen people guessing at the apparent diameter 
of the moon and no two agreeing, and yet the 
moon itself is not changeable. 

We lingered about the high altar gazing 
down into the alleged tomb of St. Peter, and up 
into the real inspiration of Angelo, studying so 
far as we could the marvelous monuments and 
mosaics which the ages have deposited here, 
and wondered more and more at the strange 
contradictions in the development of Christi- 
anity. 

More than fifty millions of dollars was here 
expended in housing and adorning the religion of 
Him who had not where to lay his head; much 
the larger part of it used in exploiting and per- 
petuating the greed and selfishness and vain- 
glory of those whose pretense was the service 
of the humble Nazarene. All for Christ, and 
yet is the Christ so hedged about and masked 
by those who should reveal him that none may 
find him in this wondrous place. This gateway 
to him is blocked and choked with art, and 
music, and gold, and silver, and precious stones, 



316 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

till not one may enter to touch the hem of his 
garment. This gateway through which he 
should go out to bear the words of life to 
starving souls is but the locked and barred 
door of his prison, shutting him from those to 
whom he came to minister. He came to give, 
in the three short years of his ministry, out of 
the nothing he possessed, a world-full of be- 
nevolence and hope and cheer and happiness to 
the children of his Father. This his church 
through the centuries has lived but to grasp 
and get for its own aggrandizement from these 
same children, the blood of their body, the 
thought of their brain and the inspiration and 
hope of their immortal souls, and strew a land 
with pitiful wrecks of humanity. 

We stopped for a few moments at the Choir 
Chapel, in which the daily service was going 
on, to find a group of priests alone participat- 
ing, and it was our experience in other churches 
in other cities of Italy that the indifference 
to church attendance in Protestant America 
but faintly reflects the conditions which obtain 
in Roman Catholic Italy. There the Church 
has yet an appeal, but has lost its command, 
save over those whose minds it has shadowed. 
And still they are religious people; the yearning 
they do not understand, of a soul . they do not 



BEING IN ROME 317 

know, they would respond to, and the habits of 
forms of devotion ingrained through genera- 
tions are not to be broken. 

We watched a father with his little child 
approach the great bronze statue of St. Peter, 
and, curious anomaly of the influence of mod- 
ern training, we saw him carefully wipe the 
bronze toe of the statue, which has been nearly 
worn off by the kisses of the faithful, with the 
dirty sleeve of his jacket, and then lift the child 
that she might bestow her worshipful salute. 

It almost seemed we were alone, the place is 
so vast, and yet within its walls and the more 
closely guarded walls of the adjoining palace 
of the Vatican, there was a whole world living 
by itself, apart from our world. They knew 
not our world; perhaps we did not know theirs. 
Who can tell? We all wall ourselves in more 
or less, we all wall others out. Perhaps some 
day the walls of separation will all be broken 
down, and we shall know each other and shall 
know the truth. 




CHAPTER XXVI 

ROUND ABOUT ROME 
FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE FAMOUS 

T was with a keen appreciation of 
the persecutions the early Christians 
had endured within the arena of the 
Colosseum that the "Angels" en- 
tered that historic place. The rush of the wild 
beasts upon their victims, which for the Chris- 
tians served as an initiation into the noble 
order of martyrs and as a popular entertainment 
to the multitudes upon the " bleachers/' was 
hardly more fierce than the rush of the guides 
and post-card venders upon our little group of 
timid sight-seers. And we had no thunders of 
applause to inspirit us. If one must be a mar- 
tyr there is surely some compensation in such 
a fine dramatic setting. Mostly we spend our 
lives trying to get into the spot light on the 
center of the stage; there is a disposition on 
the part of some to be willing to sacrifice 
friends, reputation and even life itself — if it 
does not hurt too much — to command atten- 
tion. Certainly there is a buoyant quality to 

318 



ROUND ABOUT ROME 319 

the spectacular which is to be reckoned in the 
account. And so it has occurred to me that 
the real martyrs of humanity's history are not 
those whose story we can read, but the great 
army of unseen and unknown who have fought 
out their battles alone and in the dark, going 
down through suffering to death in solitude 
and silence. Almost any of us, though craven 
by nature, would put up something of a fight 
against a bloodthirsty tiger if there were sixty 
thousand people looking at us. I fancy there 
will be some revelations sometime in the great 
hereafter, when things are seen as they are, 
and we shall discover that heroism was no 
more in the heart of the man leading an army 
on the field of battle than in the heart of the 
woman at home waiting for the return of "the 
hero"; that she whose heart was being eaten 
out by some great grief and she who had been 
exiled into obscurity by her convictions of the 
truth were no less martyrs than those who 
were torn in pieces by lions in the Colosseum. 
And yet, after our experience with guides and 
post-card venders, I am disposed to give those 
early Christians high rank among the heroic of 
earth. 

It was the off season when we were there, 
tourists were not plentiful, and these modern 



320 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



"wild beasts" were very hungry and very fierce. 
But we met their attacks with Yankee shrewd- 
ness, bought their cards at fifty per cent dis- 
count, and marched around the arena at the 
head of a procession of petitioners for our 




THE COLOSSEUM. 



bounty. And when we sat in the seats of the 
mighty, to witness the pageant which memory 
invoked, they formed a restless frame for the 
picture. 

We did not visit the Colosseum by moon- 
light, as all other tourists seem to have done, 
chiefly because there was no moon in Rome on 



ROUND ABOUT ROME 321 

our dates. It was sunlight, and sun heat too 
away up in the upper registers, which made us 
yearn for the shadow of a rock as in a thirsty 
land, and wonder at the endurance of those 
who participated in the strenuous games of the 
long ago. Though the place did appeal to us 
as, in a way, ideal for a baseball or football 
contest, having a capacity equal even to the 
demands of a Harvard-Yale battle, we doubted 
the staying power of even the most hardened 
American "fan" under that burning sun. 
Perhaps the intensity of the heat had something 
to do with the intensity of the game, for there 
has been considerable of a change in the course 
of the centuries. Now on great occasions, as 
the opening of the season, the Mayor of the 
city, or the Governor of the State, or even the 
President of the Union, tosses a ball to the 
players, in faint imitation of the time when 
the Roman Emperor, in merry mood, figura- 
tively speaking, tossed a human victim to the 
tiger. 

We Americans who are more or less appre- 
hensive that the tide in our own country which 
is setting so strongly towards sport as the chief 
end of man, have but to read a prophecy in the 
story of Rome to find reason for the appre- 
hension. The thought which controlled Rome 



322 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

at the time of the building of the Colosseum 
was, "Keep the people amused and you can 
do anything with them. " And this wonderful 
place was opened something over eighteen hun- 
dred years ago with an entertainment lasting 
one hundred days, during which ten thousand 
animals were slain, and Titus thus "made him- 
self good" with his constituency. The coun- 
terpart of this with us is the ward boss, who 
may not slay ten thousand animals, but once 
a year he opens as many kegs of beer as are 
necessary to accomplish proportionately the 
same result. We are building larger and larger 
arenas for pleasure, under the delusion that 
recreation is better than creation, and that as 
long as people laugh they are happy. But 
Rome laughed her way to her decline and fall. 
The Colosseum is a distinct satisfaction to 
the eye; few of the creations of man exceed it 
in size, and its perfect proportions make it 
majestic. It is over a third of a mile around 
it, and though it is but the ruin of its former 
splendor, enough of it remains most clearly to 
suggest the glory that was. Through fine 
arches and arcades we possess the place; we 
can enter the arena where the titanic sports 
took place, or climb to the seats of the spec- 
tators. And we are led to marvel at the skill 



ROUND ABOUT ROME 323 

of the builders, for the centuries have but solid- 
ified their work until it seems like one great 
gray stone hewn into shape. And all this was 
done at the command of a robber ruler, one 
who sent his armies out to waste other lands 
and bring home their riches to build a monu- 
ment for himself. At his command thousands 
sprang to fight, to die, and all for what? The 
fighters of those olden days did not know, and 
we have not yet solved the riddle why men 
fight each other at the command of another. 
It does not matter whether it is in the arena of 
the Colosseum or on the field of battle; it does 
not matter whether it was in ancient Rome or 
in modern Europe. As we sat there looking 
down into that old arena there seemed to 
come forth two accoutered for battle; they 
bowed to the royal balcony, and then fell to 
destroying each other. For what? And when 
one was dead the other bowed again to his 
master, and awaited his turn to become the 
next victim. It is not so very different in the 
whole scheme of war. Some one commands, it 
may be a king, or a president, or the news- 
papers, it does not matter; the foolish men 
shout and begin to kill each other, and perhaps 
some one gets a laurel wreath; but the ruler 
gets the crown, the women and the children 



324 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



the tears, and ultimately the country gets the 
penalty. 

I suppose that when Titus opened this great 
place of amusement in the year 72, and realized 
that it was the supreme achievement of man up 
to that time, he felt that he had fixed his fame 




IN THE ARENA. 



for all time, and yet, though the name had 
been written all over the place and carved deep 
in every stone, it would have little more sig- 
nificance to-day than any other five letters of 
the alphabet, for the personality back of the 
letters would have disappeared under the accu- 
mulations of the years, even as the arena of his 



ROUND ABOUT ROME 325 

amphitheater has been turned into a cellar by 
the waste of the centuries. 

On Palatine Hill one stands on the founda- 
tion of Rome and looks around and down upon 
more history than from any other point in the 
whole world. Here it was that Romulus, hav- 
ing killed his brother Remus, established the 
city 753 B.C. Here was the Temple of Jupi- 
ter, here the palace of the Caesars; tradition 
says that here St. Paul was brought before 
Nero. From here we can look down on one side 
upon the Colosseum from which we have just 
come, upon the great Arch of Constantine 
honoring the man who made Christianity the re- 
ligion of the State, and away through the valley 
between Mount Aventino and Mount Celio, to 
the Appian Way. On the other, side, at our 
feet, is the Arch of Titus, and from this stretch 
away the wonders of the Roman Forum, at the 
other extreme of which rises the Arch of Septi- 
mius Severus and, intervening, such a group of 
historic ruins as no place on earth of equal area 
can ever dream of possessing. It is an experi- 
ence to be coveted to be thus in touch with the 
past, and for the mind that is open and the 
imagination that is unfettered there are treas- 
ures nowhere else to be disclosed. One thou- 
sand, two thousand, twenty-five hundred years 



326 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

make little difference in that which is elemental 
in human nature. Men loved and hated then 
as now; they gambled with fame and fortune 
even as they do to-day. And after all, they 
got what food they wanted to eat, what clothes 
they cared to wear, and such houses as they 
desired to live in, and then fought over the 
extras. And that is about what we do. 

We were in the Forum. Two "Angels" were 
resting amid the ruins of the Temple of Castor 
and Pollux. Two more "Angels" were stand- 
ing in the ruined Basilica Julia, and one of 
them, an "Angel" of the ministerial persuasion, 
was in deep discussion with an Italian of the 
baser sort, who evidently had some complaint 
to make about the presence of foreigners in that 
sacred place. Now, when one is tired, I do 
not know of anything more restful than wit- 
nessing a discussion between an American and 
an Italian neither of whom can understand a 
word the other says, and I recall this scene as 
one of the peculiarly bright spots in a summer 
which was one continued story of good times. 
When the Italian came upon the unsuspecting 
"Angels," he delivered an address which, so far 
as the American mind could grasp it, appeared 
to be one of Cicero's philippics against Mark 
Antony; anyway, from the gestures, it appeared 



ROUND ABOUT ROME 327 

that it was desirable that the Americans were 
to get out. To this the ministerial "Angel" 
replied in a few well-chosen words, indicating 
his determination to stay there just as long as 
he chose to do so, having paid the necessary- 
fee. The Italian then delivered another ora- 
tion, accompanied by a pantomime which might 
mean anything or nothing, but giving the gen- 
eral impression that he was getting mad and 
that something was about to happen. At this 
point the "Angel" resting in the temple of 
Castor and Pollux offered the suggestion that 
the other "Angel" try one of his old sermons 
on the enemy as a fit weapon to pit against his 
classic eloquence. As a desperate man resort- 
ing to desperate means, the harassed but 
doughty ministerial "Angel" passed his hand 
across his massive brow to revive his memory 
and clarify his thought, and then with his best 
pulpit manner and preaching voice he began 
a sermon which was good for at least thirty- 
five minutes, and I took off my hat to be 
ready to take the collection as soon as he had 
finished, but before he had got half through the 
introduction the Italian was on the run up 
the slope towards the entrance and, so far as 
we know, is running yet. And I don't blame 
him. 



328 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

After this encounter we wandered over 
towards the Temple of Concord, thinking to 
soothe our minds by the suggestions of the 
place, only to run up against a very curious, not 
to say distracting, memory. When coming 
through London I had been made the victim 
of one of the raids in the interests of "Votes 
for Women," and had hardly recovered my 
poise of mind on this most modern question 
when my attention was called to the fact that 
in this same Forum, in the year 160 B.C., or 
somewhere in that vicinity of years, one Cato, 
an emperor or dictator, arose to make a speech 
in opposition to a petition of the women, in 
which he said that the men ought to assert 
their authority over their wives, whose be- 
havior was so shocking that he felt an emotion 
of shame when he was coming through the 
throng of women in the Forum. It was a de- 
plorable fact, he said, that they were no longer 
willing to sit attentively and listen to the elo- 
quence of their husbands and brothers, but 
were so degenerate as actually to solicit votes 
of the consuls and magistrates in favor of 
themselves. Perhaps Brother Cato thought 
he had settled that question once and for all 
time, two thousand and sixty years ago, but 
after all this time we have come to know that 



ROUND ABOUT ROME 329 

no question is ever settled until it is settled 

right. 

Between the Temple of Antoninus Pius and 
the Temple of Romulus there are excavations 
being made, and away down below the founda- 
tions of the oldest they have found some tombs, 





TEMPLE OF ANTONINUS. 



which probably belonged to the ancient Latins, 
antedating Romulus. From these they have 
brought out a good many skulls in a very fair 
state of preservation, and they are set up on a 
ledge of the old temple wall, just as the modern 
housewife places her pet dishes around the wall 
of her dining-room. The skulls interested me 



330 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

tremendously, for in all probability they once 
carried the brains of the rulers and leaders of 
those days. And as I paused before a row of 
them I seemed to see a marked resemblance 
to some of the leaders of to-day, and I am 
positive that in some of the features I recog- 
nized a Roosevelt, a Bryan, a Champ Clark 
and an Uncle Joe. 

We spent a good deal of time in the Forum, 
and yet not nearly enough to satisfy. Every 
step revealed new wonders, and it was easy with 
the remnants of our Roman history, and an 
agile imagination, to rebuild the ruins into some- 
thing of their former splendor. Seated on a 
fragment of the Temple of Saturn, in the shadow 
of one of the Ionic columns still remaining after 
its twenty-four hundred years of existence, it 
is possible to witness in the mind's eye a 
most remarkable procession of historic charac- 
ters passing back and forth through this market 
place of ancient Rome, and to hear with the 
ear of fancy those orations which have fixed 
the standards of classic literature. 

There are other things in the Forum besides 
heroic memories. Every few steps there are 
holes of varying size, but slightly protected, 
in some instances, by fragile wooden fences. 
These are the excavations being made in search 



EOUND ABOUT ROME 331 

for more knowledge, and while we commend the 
object, it is well to have a care lest, by a mis- 
step, we are plunged into the Pool of Juturna 
where the gods are said to have watered their 
horses. I was impressed with the lack of life 
in the old place; though it is in the midst of a 
great city, a silence broods here unbroken. 
And so it was that I was intensely surprised, 
while sitting on a bit of antiquity, to hear the 
chirp of an unknown bird, and I looked eagerly 
about to locate the fair visitor. I saw no bird, 
but presently discovered that the shrill chirp 
came from a wretched lizard which was sun- 
ning itself and watching me. The instant it 
saw that I saw it, it flashed from sight, with a 
rapidity which would make a streak of light- 
ning seem to be walking backward, right under 
the stone on which I sat. I did not care about 
that stone particularly; there were plenty of 
others equally good, and so I went right away. 
Of course the lizard was harmless, but he was 
the most dangerous-looking harmless creature 
I ever encountered, and really, it was time for 
us all to go back to the hotel for dinner. 

We started out one afternoon to see the 
Pantheon. We could not get an English- 
speaking driver, and so we had the clerk arrange 
carefully with the driver that we were to be 



332 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

taken directly there; that was all we wanted 
to see. We had a vague notion of its location 
upon the map, but paid no heed to where we 
were going until we brought up at the Colos- 
seum, and the driver, with an expression of rap- 
ture on his face, waved his hand towards the 
great theater and shouted, "Ze Colosseum !" 
I shook my head and explained slowly and dis- 
tinctly that we wanted to go to the Pantheon, 
and he drove on. Presently we found ourselves 
in familiar surroundings near the entrance of 
the Forum, and our driver, again in rapture, 
waving his hand and proclaiming, "Foro Ro- 
mano !" Again I shook my head and explained 
that our one desire was to see the Pantheon. 
He next landed us at the National Gallery, 
when I nearly dislocated my head in indicating 
that he had made a mistake, and once more 
pronounced with great care the word "Pan- 
theon. " Each time the fellow seemed to com- 
prehend, but he took us to churches, and foun- 
tains, and statues, and would have carried us 
again to St. Peter's had I not threatened him 
fiercely, and then finally, just a few moments 
before it closed, he brought us to the Pantheon, 
and pointed it out as if it were a new discovery 
and it was just a happy thought of his by 
which we happened there. We had an argu- 



ROUND ABOUT ROME 333 

ment over the fare, but as I had all the money 
I had the best of the argument. I paid him, 
and left him saying some things which sounded 
much better in Italian than in American. 

We wanted to get into the Pantheon because 
it is the oldest building along the whole course 
of our tour. It was founded away back before 
the beginning of the Christian era, and is sup- 
posed to have been designed for baths, but 
later it became a temple of Jupiter, afterwards 
was dedicated to the Virgin, and now is the 
resting place for a few of the most distinguished 
of Italy's dead. It is of vast size, being nearly 
two hundred feet in diameter, and is lighted 
entirely through a great hole in the center of 
the dome. There is nothing beautiful about 
it, but it is interesting as a connection with 
the past, and with that peculiar past when 
the Romans seemed to take more interest in 
baths than they do at present. There are the 
ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, larger even 
than the Colosseum, and the Baths of Diocle- 
tian, but their glory has departed, and in ob- 
serving some of the people it appears that the 
practice of bathing has departed with the glory 
of the baths. 




CHAPTER XXVII 

NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 

WHERE WEEDS AND FLOWERS GROW FROM THE 
SAME DIRT 

HE journey from Rome to Naples is 
not unlike that from Florence to 
Rome in point of scenery, but seems 
to lack the distinctive historic points. 
Probably there was just as much history made 
south of the Eternal City as north, but history 
which grips you is biographic. The individual 
and not the mass, the single tree which rises 
above the forest rather than the forest, is what 
we see and remember. The altogether charm- 
ing walled towns are all along the way, clinging 
to the side, or perched upon the top of the 
mountains, and are so luring that I have 
pledged myself, if ever I go to Italy again, to 
know thoroughly the life within those walls. 
I do not believe we ever really know a country 
until we get away from the artificiality of the 
big cities and get close to the rural life. Italy 
is rich in art, but what are all her galleries 
compared to the living pictures, when real 

334 



NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 335 

models pose in real settings, both by nature and 
by inheritance artistic, and having the added 
charm of the capricious? Italy's art hides 
Italy's nature; Italy's glory masks Italy's 
beauty. Sometime we may get away from the 
achievements to those who achieved. Some 
day we shall find the real Italy and the real 
Italian, off the beaten track, up the little can- 
yons among the Alban hills, or within the walls 
of unexplored cities. To one not addicted to 
wine, what can be more picturesque than the 
mad revel of the wine making, when boys and 
girls and men and women with clothes of many 
colors and much dirt, dance and sing about 
the vat, in which others tread out the juice 
with their bare feet? I remember the making 
of cigars down on the west coast of Central 
America, where the Indians sat around in a 
circle on the dirt floor of their huts and rolled 
the cigars on their bare legs. And I brought 
home a box, and though that was many years 
ago, and I have offered them to many friends 
while telling the story of their making, not one 
has ever been smoked. I am wondering now 
if I should not have brought home a bottle of 
Italian wine — in the interest of temperance. 

Naples is Italy to the average American. 
That is, as most of our immigrants are from 



336 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

the south of Italy, and from the lower strata 
of society, we judge the country by them, and 
over here we find literally the nest and breed- 
ing place of these people in the city of Naples. 
And yet what could be more unjust than to 
judge the city by them? They do occupy sev- 
eral sections, and they are very large sections, 
but Naples is a very large city, larger than 
Boston, and we might as well judge Boston by 
her slums as Naples by her "old town/' down 
near the Porta del Carmine. And yet the two 
cities are not comparable. In Boston the divi- 
sion line is sharply drawn between the geo- 
graphical sections in which different grades of 
life are located, while in Naples, a garden spot 
for humanity, the weeds and the flowers grow 
in the same dirt. 

We spent some time driving through what 
would be called the slum district, and it was 
about as wretched as anything I ever saw. 
Here were whole blocks of buildings in various 
stages of decay, which were simply hives 
swarming with human beings spreading out 
into the street until it was with difficulty one 
could pass; all sorts of trading were going on and 
every form of petty industry. The confusion 
and commotion of voices were almost beyond 
endurance; the fronts of the buildings were as 



NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 337 

dirty as the street itself; the heat and the odors 
were almost sickening; and yet right in the 
center of one of these slum tenement houses, 
as we should call them, would be a great arched 
doorway, sometimes with the huge doors closed, 
but more often with them open, and through 
the opening would be revealed the most ex- 
quisite grounds and a magnificent palace, the 
residence of the owner of the awful hive of filth 
and depravity which formed the front wall of 
his estate. 

This condition of things is not confined to 
Naples; other cities of Italy have something the 
same custom, just adapted to their own pecul- 
iar conditions. In Venice the family which 
owns a palace and has met with financial re- 
verses simply reserves to itself one floor, and 
turns the rest over to whosoever will pay the 
price, and within the walls of one building there 
may be represented every grade of society from 
the pauper to the prince. And here is the curi- 
ous thing, that under these circumstances class 
distinctions are maintained, while in our coun- 
try, where, nominally, we have no class distinc- 
tions, the city is hardly big enough to satisfy 
our exclusive spirit. 

We found the real Neapolitan life in any one 
of many streets, for life is mostly on the street. 



338 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

We saw the old age which an artist might like 
to picture because of its horror, when every 
grace of face and figure and mind had departed, 
yet struggling to continue life. Not two blocks 
from our hotel — and we were in the "better 
section" — was the dried-up fragment of an old 
woman who had set a little stand in the street, 
while she sat on the curb; on the stand were 
twelve stubs of half -smoked cigars, which she 
had picked up in the gutters, and she was try- 
ing to make a living by selling them. The 
artist who could reproduce that face on canvas 
would be counted a master, and some rich 
American would give thousands of dollars for 
the painting. But the original! 

Sometimes there swung out across the pave- 
ment a group of laughing, shouting dancers, 
young people and children, and they seemed the 
very embodiment of southern Italy, thought- 
less, care-free, a part of the sunshine in which 
they danced, and it was beautiful, in the same 
way a butterfly which flashes across your path 
is beautiful, but you do not care to touch it. I 
had always read of the rare beauty and grace 
of the Italian girl, and sometimes she is beau- 
tiful in her way; we can pick out features 
which are exquisite, and I doubt not she will 
average up pretty well with her sisters the world 



NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 339 

over, but I was disappointed in her walk. It is 
said that because she has been brought up from 
childhood to carry burdens on her head, she is 
straight and carries herself with wonderful poise, 
whereas it seemed to me that her "poise/' which 
very naturally came from the burden bearing, 
was almost a deformity. Her walk is not 
natural because it does not involve the whole 
body; it is as if two legs were carrying about a 
body which was being balanced on top of them 
and with which they had no vital connection. 
But then we cannot say much about women 
walking any more; what with shoes and skirts to 
hamper, our women are fast degenerating to 
the condition from which their Chinese sisters 
are seeking redemption. 

But the children are pretty. The dirty little 
rascals and witches will get you every time 
with their big black eyes if you don't watch 
out. I stepped into a store to buy some trifle, 
and there on the counter was a baby boy not 
more than two years old. His hair was in a 
glorious tangle and half obscured his face, but 
his eyes were shining through and they were 
just snapping with jolly good fellowship. He 
was sitting on the counter with his legs spread 
wide apart; between them stood a big tumbler 
of red wine, and he had some sticks of bread, 



340 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

such as we used to dip into sirup, and he 
was sopping them in the wine and, as he 
thought, having the best dinner ever. I think 
I could have bought him for five lira, but was 
afraid I could not get him through the customs 
when I got home. 

It seems to be a part of the nature of the 
Latin races to gamble, and never have I seen a 
people so infatuated with the lottery since, a 
good many years ago, before the United States 
had laid her hand upon the Isthmus, I watched 
little children selling lottery tickets in the 
streets of Panama. Our new country outgrew 
this form of evil long ago, while Italy, with her 
older "civilization/' not only permits but en- 
courages the crime. The government is con- 
scientious in its support, claiming that it is but 
a form of tax which is more agreeable to the 
people than making a direct levy, and that as 
the people will gamble anyway, it is better for 
the government to take their money and make 
good use of it than to lose it to others. They 
have something of a "case" against us in Amer- 
ica, where the government, itself too good to 
gamble, allows the stock broker and the mining 
promoter to "do" the easy victim. 

There are more than three hundred and fifty 
churches in Naples, some of them beautiful, 



NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 341 

some interesting, and more which are neither. 
We in America get a wrong notion of church 
architecture in Europe. We see the pictures of 
a few of the many, and because of their pecul- 
iar grace of design or historic association they 
appeal to us tremendously, and we jump to the 
conclusion that all churches abroad are beau- 
tiful and interesting, when the fact is that 
those we see in pictures are selected out of a 
great mass because they are beautiful, because 
they are different from the rest. There are 
proportionately quite as many unattractive and 
uninteresting churches in any country of 
Europe as there are in America. There are 
church buildings right here in the great city of 
Naples which, if they were located in America 
and were used as stables, would be torn down 
by order of the Board of Health. And if an 
artist were to go through our own country and 
select certain conspicuous church buildings and 
reproduce them in pictures, employing every 
artistic accessory, and display them in a foreign 
country as representative of America, we should 
command a reasonable respect, at least until 
some of our own people who have never seen their 
own country, discredit it in the eyes of others. 
In the matter of decoration we must ac- 
knowledge that the European church is differ- 



342 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

ent from ours. Those people came at religion 
from a different point of view and so they call 
out a different form of expression, and when 
able to secure it, have invoked the aid of the 
greatest artists, so that it is possible to find 
even in indifferent buildings works of the great- 
est perfection; and people visit churches, not 
always to worship, but to see the pictures, just 
as they go to the National Gallery. 

The National Museum at Naples, besides its 
treasures of art, which place it in the rank of 
some of the best of the land, has a peculiar in- 
terest in being the depository of many of the 
relics recovered from Herculaneum and Pompeii, 
and for those who cannot visit the ruins of 
these ancient cities the museum furnishes a very 
satisfactory substitute. Besides the museum 
there are collections of art in some of the many 
palaces open to the public, and in the Univer- 
sity, the Botanic Gardens, the Aquarium, and 
many institutions of charity we find the higher 
and better side of Neapolitan life. And here 
we fall to wondering, as we have wondered all 
through Italy, at the wide contrasts which are 
constantly being forced upon our attention. 
The thing we associate only with the highest 
culture, and particularly with literary culture, 
comes to consummate perfection in a land with- 



NAPLES THE BEAUTIFUL 343 

out culture according to our definition. And I 
am wondering if with our artificial culture which 
we are carrying to extremes all the way up 
from our primary schools through society and 
the church, we have not destroyed in no small 
measure that natural culture which is the 
product of the unhampered human soul. 

We found driving an exhilarating pastime in 
Naples. There is not a moment of monotony 
along the way. The horse is always almost on 
the run, and as we were whisked around a 
corner it was like a transformation scene on 
the stage, for we passed from poverty to pros- 
perity and back again to poverty in the length 
of a block, or pausing anywhere, the democ- 
racy of the street and the exclusiveness of rank 
were sure to come within the range of vision. 

But, after all, Naples the Beautiful retains 
her name not so much because of what is inside 
the city as of what is without. As a whole, the 
city itself is not beautiful, but nowhere in the 
whole world can there be found such a setting 
for a municipal jewel. The Bay of Naples is all 
that artists have painted and poets have sung, 
and back of the city rises that inexhaustible 
marvel, Vesuvius, ever dear to the Neapolitan, 
because with it there is ever the chance he loves, 
to gamble, and the stakes are life and death. 




CHAPTER XXVIII 

UP VESUVIUS 

THE ANGELS AGAIN SEEK THE HEIGHTS TO LOOK 
INTO THE DEPTHS 

HE temptation of the child to pat the 
sleeping lion is almost irresistible. 
Because we are all children we like 
to climb Vesuvius. As long as the 
lion is asleep there is no danger, but the trouble 
is, he does not always wait for the breakfast 
bell before he wakens; he is apt to be sudden 
and spasmodic, to be governed by no time 
schedule, and so there is introduced a certain 
element of chance which appeals to the gam- 
bling as well as the gamboling instinct. Some- 
thing over eighteen hundred years ago this 
great lion of a mountain on the shore of the 
Bay of Naples was sleeping sweetly, as he had 
been from all time, so far as any records show. 
He was very cozy and attractive and a lot of 
little child-cities cuddled up close and were 
very happy. They stayed there so long that 
some of them grew very big, and they never 
thought of any danger; nothing had happened, 

344 



up Vesuvius 345 

therefore nothing would happen, was the way 
they reasoned, and then all of a sudden some- 
thing did happen. The great beast woke up, 
and roared and stretched himself, and reached 
out two great paws and put them down on 
the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, and it 
was sixteen hundred years before those cities 
again saw the light of day. But the old lion 
turned himself and went to sleep again. It 
would seem that even children would learn 
their lesson sometime; but so soon do we for- 
get, and it was only a few generations before 
other child-cities were creeping up nearer and 
nearer to the sleeping lion, confident he would 
never wake again, or taking the chance that 
it would not be in their time. But the old lion 
was restless, and all through the centuries he 
has been waking at intervals, and every time 
he rouses some one gets hurt. And yet the 
children of men continue to crowd upon him; 
they even climb upon his back, and wander all 
about him, going so far as to venture to look 
down his throat. That is what the "Angels" 
did — and they are still living to tell the story. 
But we did not rush upon His Majesty with 
rude haste. There is a railroad from Naples to 
the foot of the mountain, the "Circumvesu- 
viana," — the line is a little longer than its 



346 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



name, — and another from Pugliano to the foot 
of the cone, and another, in process of con- 
struction when we were there, to the crater. 
Being wisely advised, we drove from Naples to 
Pugliano, and as the morning was charming 
and the temperature delightful, we enjoyed 
every foot of the way. We realized something 




ON THE ROAD TO VESUVIUS. 



of the size of the city of Naples before we got 
out of it, and were given an opportunity to see 
certain sections and certain phases of life which 
would never come in the way of the conven- 
tional sight-seeing trip, but rejoiced exceedingly 
when, outside of the city limits, we began to 
twist and turn through the serpentine roads, 
with their lava walls, over which and through 
the gateways in which we could see and enjoy 



up Vesuvius 347 

the beautiful gardens which foamed over the 
walls in their luxuriance. We might not sit, 
but at least we did literally drive under some 
other man's vine and fig tree. 

Before we reached our destination, we felt 
that our mission was benevolent for whenever 
we passed a group of houses there were flocks 
of children who got no end of fun from the 
curious Americans. Just what there was pe- 
culiar about us I have not yet discovered, but 
we were different in some way, and so gave 
occasion for the youngsters to run at us and 
shout "Hi!" Perhaps they wanted centesimi. 
But I can remember back far enough to see a 
little group of barefoot American boys who 
shouted " Hi! " at almost anything which passed 
along the road, and I fancy it is so the world 
over, that boys must shout "Hi!" at something, 
out of the very exuberance of boy nature, and 
so it was a kindness to give them a chance to 
shout. 

At Pugliano we had reason to thank the 
enterprise of Thomas Cook & Son for making 
the ascent of Vesuvius both easy and pleasant, 
for from this point the firm has built a fine 
electric and rack railway, so that even the most 
delicate can enjoy the glories of achieving the 
heights. A little more than halfway up they 



348 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

have also built a good hotel, which in its own 
location and its addition to the comfort of the 
whole trip, is a decided contribution to the 
pleasure of tourists. We are not to suppose 
that Cook & Son have done this purely as a 
bit of benevolence, but they have put in hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars as a business 
enterprise, they expect to make money, and 
deserve to, and yet every visitor will thank 
them for the great benefit which is incidental 
to their business success. 

The first stage of the trip gives one but 
little sense of climbing a great mountain, for 
the grade is not heavy, and we are passing 
through a continuous vineyard or garden or 
orchard. This is the section where the grapes 
are grown for a famous Italian wine; here grow 
oranges, lemons, figs and olives, and there is a 
wilderness of roses and other flowering plants 
to give color to the scene, and it is only once 
in a while that we catch through the trees a 
glimpse of the smoking peak which is our goal. 
And yet we are already on a solid mass of old 
lava, the deposits of former eruptions. There 
is a curious quality of the lava which, pouring 
down the mountain at an eruption, is destruc- 
tive of everything in its path, and yet after it 
has cooled for several years it begins to disin- 



up Vesuvius 349 

tegrate, and later forms a most fertile soil, 
peculiarly adapted to the vine. So that when 
a man's vineyard is swept away by the flow of 
lava it is not all loss, if he can relocate his 
"claim," for as soon as the lava hardens it 
becomes good building material, and later re- 
juvenates the land. 

Mount Cateroni is a sort of by-peak of Vesu- 
vius, which we have first to climb, and here 
was where the real ascent began. And as we 
were lifted up through ravines and carried along 
precipitous cliffs there began to unfold below 
a view of the country and the blue waters of 
the Bay of Naples, which was far more fasci- 
nating than the dull and gloomy mountain, 
from the top of which ever waved a plume of 
smoke and ashes. There is a pause for a few 
moments at "The Hermitage," as the hotel is 
called, and then we are quickly carried over 
the last stage, past the Royal Observatory, to 
the foot of the cone. This takes only about 
ten minutes, and yet in that brief time we have 
passed into a new world; every particle of 
vegetation has disappeared, and all about is 
a bare and desolate desert of lava and ashes. 
Here are some of the most wonderful forma- 
tions. In places can still be seen the current 
of liquid rock which was sweeping along and 



350 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

then was caught with the chill of the air and 
solidified into a motionless torrent, to endure 
until another sweeps over it and hides it, as 
others have hidden the ancient cities of the 
plain. Then there are the huge piles of black 
rubble, no man can tell how many hundreds 
of feet deep, which reminded me of some of 
the vast and desolate piles of black basalt rock 
which cumber the earth in the canyon of the 
Colorado in Arizona. The whole mountain is 
a gigantic contradiction. We often see in the 
kingdom of vegetation a clump of dead matter 
out of which there is pushing some form of 
ambitious life; but here is this mountain set in 
the midst of glowing life and thrusting up a 
pinnacle of death. 

The cone seems to be about all ashes, and yet 
the ashes are held in place by the jagged teeth 
of the lava, but there are enough of them on 
the surface to make walking even more of an 
effort than plowing through a foot of snow 
among the New England hills. But from this 
point it was necessary to do some real climbing, 
as the funicular railway was not running. 
There were three ways of ascent, walking, 
horseback riding, or being borne in a chair 
upon the back of a man. The latter method 
did not appeal in the least to the "Angels," so 



up Vesuvius 351 

those who could secured horses, and the others 
walked, with a man to push them over the 
steepest places. It is really but a little distance 
to the crater, not more than a quarter of a 
mile, could one go direct, but that is quite 
impossible, and so the path winds and twists 
through several miles to take advantage of easy 
lifts. In itself the climb is uninteresting, for 




VESUVIUS. 



such constant care must be given to the foot- 
ing, lest there be a slide into some chasm, that 
there is no possibility of seeing anything until 
the extreme edge of the crater is reached, and 
even here the greatest caution must be exer- 
cised, lest a false step precipitate one down 
either the inside or the outside. 

But this was the point of achievement, and 
standing on the narrow path, with an officious 
guide, required by the government, watching 
every motion, and turning you quickly away 



352 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

when a puff of sulphuric smoke is swept from 
the depths, there is the chance to look down 
towards the center of the earth, if not actually 
into it, and the better chance to look off over 
the surface of the whole round world which 
seems to lie below you. On the whole the 
crater is a good deal of a disappointment. Since 
the last eruption the cone appears to be the 
very perfection of a cone; it slopes up on the 
outside in perfect proportions, and it slopes 
down on the inside with almost equal perfec- 
tion. It is impossible to measure the depth 
with the eye, though there was hardly any 
smoke to obscure the view; but it is a good 
deal deeper than one would care to fall, and 
there is sufficient mystery hiding in those depths 
to give one a sort of creepy feeling and early 
satisfy him with the conviction that he has 
had enough. 

The real value of the ascent of Vesuvius to- 
day is in the really magnificent view which is 
revealed. Right at the foot of the mountain 
is the city of Resina, which is built on the 
lava bed which covers Herculaneum more than 
one hundred feet deep, and beyond, out in the 
plain, is Pompeii, from which the blanket of 
lava has been lifted, and all about are the 
newer cities which are just waiting their turn 



up Vesuvius 353 

to be sacrificed when the mountain shall again 
rouse from its nap to readjust its position. 
Beyond the cities and the green of vineyard 
and orchard lies the glory of this whole coun- 
try, the Bay of Naples, the most exquisite bit 
of coloring, and from this distance there is not 
a shadow to mar its beauty. And then there is 
" Naples the Beautiful/' and from here none may 
question the beauty, for all the squalor and dis- 
tress are forgotten in the new city which is re- 
vealed, as fair a picture as the sunlight falls upon. 
The only blots upon the ascent of Vesuvius are 
the governmental guide, whom every visitor is 
obliged to take, and the multitude of unofficial 
helpers who assail you with their appeals for 
employment and then with appeals for "a big 
tip." They beset you from every point; on 
the very summit they insist you shall buy 
wine, and all along the way they seek to get 
you into trying positions, from which they offi- 
ciously extricate you, with the plea for a a big- 
ger tip." They offer to sell you pieces of the 
thousands of acres of lava on which you are 
walking, and to bottle up the ashes for you to 
bring away, and no matter how much you give 
they want more. Alas, the only creatures really 
deserving of a tip were the horses, to which 
we could not give even a bunch of grass. 



354 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

The descent is much more rapid than the 
ascent, but not less difficult and dangerous. 
The feet plunge deep into the ashes, and there 
is a constant sense of insecurity. The horses 
are wonderful in their ability to keep the path, 
which at times is very narrow, and seem to be 
most philosophical when a leg slips over the 
edge, by a sudden twist recovering themselves 
and moving on as if nothing had happened, 
and they must often bear the handicap of one 
or more people clinging to their tails. 

We came down to "The Hermitage," where, 
after a good wash and a most thorough dusting, 
of which we were in desperate need, we enjoyed 
the excellent dinner, and then went out under 
the trees to look our fill of the ravishing scene, 
forgetting the death and desolation at our back, 
forgetting the weariness and the dirt, forgetting 
even the irritation of the guides, in fact, for- 
getting all of Europe, — for out there in the 
blue waters of the bay is the great White Star 
steamer, the Canopic, and to-morrow we are 
going home. 




CHAPTER XXIX 

THE RETURN FLIGHT 
ACROSS THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE ATLANTIC 

'HEN the Canopic sailed away into 
the sunset, and up out of the blue 
waters of the bay slowly rose the 
city, to sink again a little later 
and softly blend with the shadowy line of the 
horizon, "Naples the Beautiful" was revealed. 
There are charming spots within it; from the 
heights it seems to nestle cozily in the curve of 
the shore line, but only from the sea is it to be 
seen at its best. And fortunate is he who 
from this point of view sees it as the rays of 
the declining sun are leveled across it and 
against the dark slopes of Vesuvius, and can 
hold the picture in his grasp until distance and 
darkness conspire to dissolve it. It is so truly 
a spectacle that it requires a conscious effort to 
force the mind to accept it as a reality. The 
color "scheme" is far beyond the power of man 
to assemble, it is on so vast a scale, and yet 
there is not a blur upon its harmony. The blue 
of the sea and the blue of the sky are laced 

355 



356 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

together with old golds and bronzed reds and 
held with tassels of olive greens, all shading 
into each other until none can tell where one 
ends and another begins. There is the level 
of the sea, then the zigzag line of buildings, 
next the billowing hills of vegetation, from 
which sweep up the splendid slopes of Vesuvius, 
from the cone of which waves the ever shifting 
banner of the unconquerable forces within the 
earth. 

We clung to the rail until the last line of this 
glorious picture was lost in the gathering dark- 
ness, and then turned with a sigh of regret, 
which was quickly transformed to a thrill of 
joyous anticipations as we realized that after 
all our journey ings our faces were set towards 
home. We had been at the rail for hours, 
having thrown our luggage into the stateroom 
as soon as we came aboard. We picked as 
good a place as could be found, to watch the 
brilliant moving panorama of Neapolitan life 
as it centered about a departing ship. Besides 
the cabin passengers, the Canopic was to carry 
eight or nine hundred in the steerage, until we 
reached the Azores, when we were to add five 
or six hundred more. Some of these emigrants 
had come aboard at Genoa, but the most of 
them climbed up the gang-plank while we were 



THE RETURN FLIGHT 357 

watching at Naples, and they were accompan- 
ied, as far as the law would allow, by the rest 
of the population. There was much weeping 
and wailing at the partings, but no indication 
of mourning in the raiment worn, for the dock 
was a veritable wild garden of color. Great 
care was being exercised that no one violating 
the health laws should get away; the medical 
officer of the ship and another representing 
the Italian government examined every pas- 
senger, and repeated the examination at least 
three times before the voyage was completed. 
Though we seldom saw these people, save when 
they were marshaled for counting, when we 
landed at Boston, we turned through the gates 
into future citizenship fifteen hundred men, 
women and children who, with nothing but 
their hands and a great faith in the land of 
freedom and opportunity, would work out 
their own salvation. Before many years some 
of them would come sailing back in the first 
cabin to live lives of ease and luxury in their 
own sunny Italy, but of the great majority 
only the grandchildren would return, and yet 
it was worth the effort and the sacrifice and 
the risk. 

There was one group not sailing with us, the 
members of which held our close attention and 



358 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

captured all our remaining Italian money. 
These were the boys who swim about the ship 
while she is lying at the dock and dive for 
coins which are thrown into the water. They 
are all good swimmers and the slickest divers 
I ever saw. A coin will strike the water fifteen 
feet from the head that is bobbing about; in- 
stantly there is a rush, then a curving of the 
body, and the boy disappears beneath the sur- 
face without a splash, to reappear after an ago- 
nizingly long time holding in his hand the coin, 
which he immediately transfers to his mouth. 
This is continued until his cheeks bulge like 
those of a chipmunk when the nuts are ripe. 
There seems no such thing as tiring these am- 
phibious urchins, and nothing can discourage 
them. While the blue water of the Bay of 
Naples is worthy of the songs it has inspired, 
the term does not refer to that portion in the 
immediate vicinity of the dock. There the 
refuse of the city seems to accumulate, a good 
deal of it being on the surface, and through this 
these boys must often dive for their coins. But 
I did not see a diver fail to get what he went 
after, unless another boy got there first. All 
this was fun for the passengers and not less for 
the boys, though it was strenuous work with 
the spice of sharp competition and just a little 



THE RETURN FLIGHT 359 

dash of danger. And yet these boys are of the 
people who will not work along steady, legiti- 
mate lines where the same energy would com- 
mand large returns, but will spend two or three 
hours in the water on the chance of winning 
less than ten cents of our money. If we could 
get at elemental motives, I fancy we should 
find that very few things, whether they be big 
or little, are done for money only. 

The morning after leaving Naples we were 
off the island of Sardinia. The name was famil- 
iar; in my schoolboy days I could have located 
it upon the map, but it had no significance, it 
was simply an island, and in my mind, and on 
the map, it was a very small affair. But for 
hours we were sailing along under its bold 
shores, and the day was waning when it sank 
below the horizon. I looked up Sardinia and 
discovered that this little, insignificant island 
out in the Mediterranean was almost as big as 
the state of Massachusetts and that a million 
of people inhabit it; that it was no different 
from the rest of the world; that there were 
industries, railroads, schools and all things that 
go to make up what we call modern civiliza- 
tion. And yet it is not at all improbable that 
there are those on the island, and among the 
more enlightened too, who never heard of the 



360 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

state of Massachusetts, excepting possibly as 
a suburb of Boston. Just across a narrow 
strait from Sardinia is another island, not half 
as big, and yet when you want to locate Sar- 
dinia you say it is south of Corsica, just be- 
cause out of Corsica came a man who changed 
the map of Europe and shook the thrones of 
the world. All of which leads to the observa- 
tion that on this earth no place is big and 
none is small, and the dream of redeeming a 
world by environment reverses the verdict of 
history. 

We never fully realize how tired we are until 
we begin to get rested. It was only when 
lying in a steamer chair through the long, lazy 
hours when we were sailing over the sunlit 
Mediterranean, that I sensed the struggle 
through which we had passed in trying to "do" 
Europe in two months. We had accomplished 
a good deal and were going home with bodies 
reinvigorated, minds recharged and souls in- 
spired, and yet how much we had missed! 
And perhaps it was the weariness which turned 
my thought in that direction, and made me 
almost afraid to go home, because I knew that 
as soon as I stepped my foot on my native land 
I should meet that self-appointed regulator of 
human affairs who would hold me up for what 



THE RETURN FLIGHT 361 

I did not see. And my weary fancy conceived 
something like this: 

"So you have been to Europe; I suppose you 
saw Berlin?" 

"Yes." 

"And of course you saw Cologne?" 

"Yes." 

"You certainly spent some time in Amster- 
dam?" 

"Yes." 

"And you were at The Hague?" 

"Yes." 

"And Munich, you saw Munich, didn't you?" 

"Yes." 

"But didn't you find Prague most interest- 
ing?" 

" I did not visit Prague." 

"What! did not visit Prague? Why, no one 
should go to Europe without visiting Prague. 
That is too bad; you missed the best of all; it 
seems such a shame that you should have 
wasted your time in those other places and not 
seen Prague! Now, let me tell you, when I 
was in Prague I — " etc. 

But presently the lazy hours got in their 
work and with rested body and refreshed mind 
I began to be glad that there were a few things 
we had not seen. It hardly seems fair to ex- 



362 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

haust poor old Europe in one trip; we want to 
leave something to see next time. There was 
that eminent old general, Alexander, who was 
brought to tears because there were no other 
worlds to conquer, and he brought his sorrow 
on himself; he should have economized on 
worlds and then they would have lasted longer. 
But we are all in a class with him; we exhaust 
the sources of our pleasure, our hope, our am- 
bition or our love, and there is nothing left but 
tears. There is nothing more pitiful in the 
world than the young man returning from his 
trip abroad entirely surfeited, having seen 
everything; with no possibility of a new and 
fresh sensation, his own conceit denies him 
even the consolation of tears. So far as the 
delight of a surprise can contribute to life he 
is dead, and there stretches away before him 
a weary desert of years which hold for him 
nothing but burial. 

Of course there were a good many wonderful 
and beautiful things which we did not see, but 
we are generous enough to allow privileges to 
others, and we hope sometime to visit Europe 
again, if not during the period of this life, then 
when we are real angels, freed from the re- 
straints of the flesh, and time and distance cease 
to be factors we must consider; we shall then 



THE RETURN FLIGHT 363 

want to find there something new. I am tired 
of worshiping the god of discontent who an- 
swers my prayers only with further dissatisfac- 
tion. Perhaps we have only skimmed Europe 
in this flight through a summer, but though it 
be so, what we did get was the cream. And 
in the story I am telling I might have stopped 
anywhere along the way and written my fill of 
the serious and weightier matters of life. But 
this was a flight and not a plodding, and in 
passing I have tried to catch some of the beau- 
tiful and significant things and bring them 
back for those who did not go. Would that I 
had brought more. But at least I am assured 
that I have made no pretense of bringing any- 
thing else than what I have brought, — a bit 
of sunshine out of our summer. 

Our ship was a new world to us; our own 
special party of American "Angels" was scat- 
tered. While we were sailing from Naples a 
large number were out on the North Sea, on 
the Red Star liner, bound for Boston, and an- 
other large party was just coming out of Hun- 
gary. On the Canopic my lot was cast in a 
stateroom with a Disciple minister and a Ro- 
man Catholic priest, both returning from Pales- 
tine to their homes in the central West, and 
we found the companionship most agreeable. 



364 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

There were a large party of student tourists who 
had been "doing" Greece, a group of opera 
singers, and another of actors. There was 
"Pepete," the Spanish bullfighter, on his way 
to Mexico to pursue his profession in which he 
proudly boasted he was making sixty thousand 
dollars a year, — which is rather better than a 
minister gets for preaching the Gospel. Then 
there was the Italian "Due," who was coming 
to our country to marry his third American 
wife. Besides these of somewhat peculiar in- 
terest, there were many charming people who 
were inconspicuously just living out their lives 
along the lines of simplicity and truth, who like 
ourselves had just taken a flight abroad for 
rest and inspiration and now returning, counted 
these Mediterranean hours palaces of memory 
through whose courts and galleries they strayed 
at will. 

After leaving Sardinia the first land we picked 
up was the coast of Spain south from Car- 
tagena, and this we followed, just far enough 
away to be tantalizing, until we came in sight 
of Gibraltar, which was still more tantalizing. 
For though we watched the mighty fortress 
rise like a shadow from the water, as it was 
transformed from shadow to substance and then 
sink away again below a new horizon which 



/ 



THE RETURN FLIGHT 365 

we were leaving, we could not stop, and all 
intimacies with the curiosities and beauties 
which cluster about the big British rock were 
denied us. 

And yet we had seen Gibraltar, and over on 
the other side of the strait were the mountains 
of northern Africa. We were passing through 




GIBRALTAR. 



the gates of what was in ancient times looked 
upon as the "western boundary of the world," 
but to us the threshold of greater worlds than 
were ever dreamed of in those olden days. 
But seeing only a passing glimpse, the glimpse 
worked a magic in opening doors in the solid 
rock through which we entered to stroll at will 
through the mysteries which are denied to those 
who really knock at the door. It really takes 



366 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

very little to connect us with great places, 
events or men, if we know how to make the 
most of our opportunities. I know a man 
whose wife has a cousin who is the valet of a 
millionaire man who has a wife who goes to 
the opera in a decollete gown, and the man I 
know poses as an authority on social questions. 
I have seen Gibraltar, and henceforth no one 
need be surprised to see me sitting in the seat 
of the wise whenever arise international com- 
plications which by any chance may involve 
this key to the Mediterranean. And I claim 
to have some right to a seat among the wise, 
for the fact that I saw the "Big Rock" for a few 
rich hours led me to post up on its whole his- 
tory, from the time, hundreds of years before 
the Christian era, when it belonged to the 
Arabs and was known as Mount of Tarik, — 
Mr. Tarik being the boss of his ward at that 
time, — down through the reign of Moors, Span- 
ish, English, Spanish again, English and Dutch, 
and finally English, who have it fixed, so far as 
we can see, for all time. But I am not going to 
burden this final chapter with history which 
any one can read, though few will read, for I 
have my eye on another island out in the 
Atlantic, where the ship is scheduled to stop 
to allow us to pick oranges. 



THE RETURN FLIGHT 367 

It is my sincere prayer that when this par- 
ticular group of "Angels" enters the harbor 
which indents the eternal shores better luck 
may await us than was ours at the Azores. We 
knew there were reports of cholera in Italy 
when we were there, but it all seemed to be over 
on the eastern coast ; it appears, however, that the 
day after we sailed it was officially recognized 
in Naples, and Naples was quarantined. The 
news was sent by cable, which travels faster 
than our ship, and so when we sailed into the 
harbor at the Azores in the early morning and 
were preparing to land we discovered that the 
yellow flag had been hoisted on the Canopic 
and round about us were a number of boats 
in each of which there was a very small army 
officer, with a very large sword and a very 
fierce cigar, and we were quarantined. Now 
just suppose something of that kind should 
happen when the "Angels" enter the harbor of 
heavenly rest! Suppose some wretch know- 
ing something which may or may not be 
true about us should cable ahead, and instead 
of the cordial welcome we expect, even if we 
do not deserve, we get the yellow flag. And it 
may be we shall have to lie off there in the 
sight of the promised land for several hundred 
years, more or less, until the quarantine is 



368 A SUMMER FLIGHT 

lifted. Perhaps that will be worse than it was 
with us through the long day when we idly- 
rocked on the light swell from the ocean, and 
looked longingly out at the green fields and 
cozy-looking gardens, and saw in our mind's 
eye the curious life which was throbbing in the 
heart of the little town, which lay so sleepily 
under the sun, — but it did not seem so to us 
then. 

We had made a good many plans other than 
that of eating oranges. A native of the islands 
had told us about a very charming drive which 
we could take, and we had looked forward with 
happy anticipation, until he told us that it 
would probably cost us fifteen hundred reis per 
hour for the carriage carrying four and that we 
should need it about three hours. This rather 
staggered us, for we were coming home from 
Europe and cash was at a premium; but he re- 
lieved our minds by translating the fifteen hun- 
dred reis into one dollar and a half, and we 
were ready to plunge, but alas, there was that 
yellow flag! We had to content ourselves with 
a distant sight of the land, an eager and satis- 
fying taste of the fresh oranges which came on 
board, and with watching the hundreds of com- 
ing American citizens who were poured into the 
steerage from boats loaded to the rail. And 



THE RETURN FLIGHT 369 

then just before the time of sailing, a Portu- 
guese warship came into the harbor, and right 
alongside of us fired a salute of a whole lot of 
guns to the governor, and then swept on up to 
the dock where we could not go. The whole 
thing was like a bit of opera bouffe, for the 
sound of the guns was so very big and the war- 
ship was so very small. But we were good- 
natured and did not run her down with the 
big Canopic, but took her salute as a kindly 
farewell, and sailed away on the last lap towards 
home. 

It was a commonplace voyage across the 
Atlantic, but the most restful thing in the world. 
And so after sunlit days of quiet pleasure and 
moonlit nights of peace, in the early morning 
hours of a September day, two months after 
we had sailed away, we moved slowly up 
through Boston harbor, and there on the ex- 
treme end of the dock we saw friends, and 
"Angels" who had preceded us, and between 
them they were holding the Stars and Stripes, 
with which they waved a welcome home. 

The returning traveler views with eager in- 
terest the first sight of his native land, and yet 
a chemical analysis will not reveal that the 
land of America differs markedly from the earth 
of Germany or the soil of Timbuctoo. But 



370 



A SUMMER FLIGHT 



when that shadow on the horizon begins to de- 
fine itself as real earth, and stone, and trees, and 
houses, and people, our chests swell out and our 
eyes flash and we think eloquently, if we do 
not speak, "This is mine own, my native land," 
and we feel a thrill of the heart for which no 
muscular contraction can adequately account. 
This feeling may be nothing but sentiment, 
nothing but foolishness, nothing which can be 
converted into gold, but, after all, it is what 
empires are made of. And it is worth a trip 
abroad just for the sake of sensing it once. 
The best of going away is the coming back. 
We get a great deal more out of our trip after 
we return than while we are working at it. 
One piece of dirt differeth from another piece 
of dirt in glory. And a bit of red and white 
bunting with a few stars upon it is far more 
beautiful, under some conditions, than the most 
costly tapestry which adorns the walls of a 
foreign temple. 




APR 26 1911 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



APR 26 1911 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



020 967 974 7 



